TOKYO (Reuters) – A 10-year-old boy enrolled in a Japanese school in Shenzhen, China, has died after being stabbed by an assailant on Wednesday, Japanese public broadcaster NHK reported citing the Japanese counsel general.
The attack took place near the school on the anniversary of an incident in 1931 that triggered war between China and Japan, a sensitive date at a time when diplomatic relations are in danger of deteriorating.
It was the second such attack near a Japanese educational facility in China in recent months.
The boy was stabbed on his way to school at about 8 a.m. on Wednesday by the suspected 44-year-old assailant, who was arrested on the spot, according to Chinese authorities. He died in the early hours of Thursday, NHK reported.
The incident follows a similar one in June, when a man attacked a bus used by a Japanese school in the eastern city of Suzhou, resulting in the death of a Chinese national who tried to shield a Japanese mother and her child from the assailant.
Also on Wednesday, a Chinese aircraft carrier entered Japan’s contiguous waters for the first time, the latest in a string of military manoeuvres that prompted a protest from Tokyo to Beijing.
(Reporting by Satoshi Sugiyama; Editing by Chang-Ran Kim)