An ax-wielding man in central China's Henan province killed six people Wednesday, including two young girls, in one of the deadliest in a series of such attacks that have continued despite government pledges to prevent them.
The attack occurred on the outskirts of Gongyi, a small city on the banks of the Yellow River in the largely impoverished province of Henan. Police detained Wang Hongbin, a 30-year-old farmer they say has a history of mental illness, in connection with the attack, according to a statement by the local government. Police and other officials in Gongyi declined to comment beyond the statement. The state-run Xinhua news agency said Mr. Wang suffers from schizophrenia.
The attack was one of several since last year that have left more than two dozen dead and rattled top government leaders.
It was at least the second within three weeks. Late last month, an employee at a day-care center for the children of migrant workers in Shanghai wounded eight children with a knife, though none of them fatally.
The attacks, which began last spring in southeastern China and have since occurred across the country, have highlighted shortcomings in services for the mentally ill and in social problems, which are worsening despite the country's rapid economic ascent. Nearly all targeted children.
Wednesday's attack appeared to be the worst since May 2010, when nine people were killed at a kindergarten in the northwestern province of Shaanxi. Attacks against children in China draw considerable public attention because of the nation's one-child policy as well as tight cultural family ties.
Shortly after the attack in Shaanxi, Premier Wen Jiabao, in an interview with a Hong Kong television station, made an uncharacteristically direct call to "tackle the deeper causes behind these problems." The remarks were seen as acknowledgment that the attacks weren't isolated incidents, as state-run media had initially portrayed them, but at least partly connected to the country's lack of mental-illness treatment and to problems such as a growing gap between rich and poor, and official corruption.
State-run media broadcast images of stepped-up security at schools, including heavily armed police, after last year's attacks.
Government services for the mentally ill in China are rudimentary, particularly in small cities and the countryside, and mental illness remains a taboo subject. Many of the ill are placed in shabby institutions, while others are left in the care of family members.
In the aftermath of last year's attacks, the government pledged to renovate or expand 550 psychiatric hospitals across the country.
Violent crime remains relatively rare in China, whose homicide rate is below that of many major nations. At about 1.2 homicides per 100,000 people, China's rate was less than one-quarter that of the U.S. in 2007, the most recent year for which comparable United Nations data are available.
