Car driven into crowd outside primary school in China
A car plowed into a crowd outside a primary school in southern China’s Hunan province, injuring several people.
There were no details on casualties, but state media said “several students and adults fell to the ground injured” and that many were being treated in hospital.
The driver of the car, a white SUV, was caught by parents and school security personnel and handed over to police.
This is the third crowd attack in China in a week, raising concerns about public safety.
“About a dozen people were hit, some of them seriously injured, but luckily the ambulance came quickly,” Mr Zhu, a parent of a child at the school, told the BBC.
He said he heard the attack as he was leaving school after dropping off his eight-year-old child.
“Six or seven parents forced the attacker’s car to stop, and even the security guard was knocked down. The security guard was very old, in his 70s or 80s, and there was nothing he could do.” He said.
The school was identified as Yongan Primary School in Dingcheng District, Hunan Province.
Live video posted on a private WeChat account showed some children lying on the ground while others ran away in panic carrying school bags.
Another video taken shortly after the incident showed an angry pedestrian hitting the SUV with a snow shovel while the driver was still inside.
The driver then emerged from the other side of the vehicle but was surrounded by bystanders who began beating him with sticks.
Similar attacks in recent days have triggered online concerns about “Revenge against society”, individuals express personal dissatisfaction by attacking strangers.
Eight people were killed and 17 injured in a knife attack at a vocational school in eastern China on Saturday. Police said the suspect is a 21-year-old former student of the school who was supposed to graduate this year but failed to pass the exam.
Previously, on November 12, at least 35 people were killed Car attack in southern Chinawhen a man encountered a group of people exercising on the track.
In October, a man committed a knife attack in a supermarket in Shanghai, killing three people and injuring 15 others.
According to police records, there have been 19 incidents of wanton violence in China this year in which the victims did not know the perpetrators. These attacks have killed 63 people and injured 166, which is a sharp increase from previous years – in 2023, for example, 16 people were killed and 40 injured.
While these events remain sporadic and rare, they are highly visible. The videos often circulate on social media, sparking concern and fear.
“These are symptoms of a society with a lot of pent-up dissatisfaction,” Lynette Wang, a distinguished professor of Chinese politics at the University of Toronto in Canada, told AFP.
“Some people will give up. Others, if they’re angry, will want revenge.”
A slowing economy, high youth unemployment and a housing crisis that has hurt savings have left Chinese people increasingly uncertain about their future.
In this case, Ong said, violent attacks are “opposite sides of the same coin.”
President Xi Jinping has ordered local officials to ensure community safety and “social stability” and to “strictly guard against extreme incidents.”
Officials are keen to show they are acting quickly. They worry that such a high number of casualties in one year could raise questions about China’s safety record, further cause panic and even hamper tourism.
The Communist Party has rapidly expanded surveillance in recent years and, after a car attack in Zhuhai last week, ordered the deployment of local officials and community workers to try to prevent unrest.
