News

People Just Got Stabbed At Chinese Train Station

by Nuzha Nuseibeh

In America, it's guns; in China, it's knives. A gruesome act of random violence hit the Yunnan province Saturday evening, when 27 people died after a group of men with knives randomly attacked a Chinese train station, leaving another 109 injured. The attackers haven't yet been identified, but some were reportedly gunned down by police.

The assault took place at the Kunming Railway Station in the southwestern part of the country, when a bunch of men wearing uniforms and holding knives allegedly barged in and began randomly stabbing travelers. Witnesses allegedly heard gunshots after the police got involved.

Though stabbings aren't uncommon in China, this is one of the deadliest attacks the country has seen in years in recent years. Many have previously occurred on school campuses — in 2012, five incidents of mass stabbings tore through the country. The first happened outside a primary school, when the attacker killed eight children; the other four left over eight students dead and over 57 wounded. The incidents became so common that security had to be tightened, and Chinese residents actually have to register with their national IDs when buying large knives.

Only a few days ago, the former editor-in-chief of Hong Kong’s newspaper Ming Pao, was stabbed three times in the street Wednesday morning, this summer, a man also stabbed four people at a shopping centre in Beijing, killing one and leaving three more wounded.