knife attack china
© Weibo
The suspected killer is led away by police.
Six people were killed and 14 wounded in a knife attack in eastern China on Saturday.

The authorities in Anqing, a city in Anhui province, said a 25-year-old unemployed man from Huaining county named Wu had been arrested over the attack.

"He killed out of anger, because of family troubles and pessimism," the municipal government said in a statement.

As of noon on Sunday, six victims of the attack were dead and 14 others were being treated for injuries. One of the injured was in a critical condition while the other 13 were in a stable condition.

It was the third such attack in China in recent weeks.

Videos circulating on the internet show several pedestrians wounded and covered in blood on a walkway along Renmin Road in the city centre, as well as multiple bloodstains on the ground.


A doctor was seen performing CPR on a woman with an abdominal injury.

The walkway along Renmin Road is located in the centre of the old town of Anqing, near a pedestrian-only zone and primary and secondary schools.

The suspect was taken away from the scene by four police officers. A photograph released by Xinan Evening News shows the suspect was wearing a grey top and dark trousers, with a white cloth strip tied around his head.

Zoe Zhang, a young woman living in Anqing, said the area where the attack happened was always very busy.

"I often go to the bookstore there. Yesterday I happened to have to work so did not go. Now I'm scared to think about it," she said.

On Saturday night, the local blood bank urgently called for donations due to a shortage of local supplies.

knife attack china
© Weibo
A police officer tends to one of those wounded in the attack.
The Ministry of Public Security sent a working group to Anqing on Saturday night to guide the investigation. The provincial party boss and the governor urged local authorities to tighten social controls and maintain order following the attack.

The incident was the third indiscriminate attack in mainland China in the last two weeks.

knife attack china
© Weibo
The suspect is seen running through the streets with a knife.
On May 22, five people were killed and injured after a car was driven into a crowd in the northeastern city of Dalian. Police arrested a man named Liu over the attack, saying he wanted to "take revenge on society" after an investment had failed.

A week later a man was arrested in Nanjing on suspicion of running over his former wife with his car and then ploughing the vehicle into a crowd before pulling out a knife in an attack that left eight injured.

These back-to-back crimes have caused great unease among the Chinese public, with some blaming them on broader socio-economic problems.

An internet user named "Chanchan" posted on the social media site Weibo that "the disparity between the rich and the poor is too large ... The lower class can't earn more than a few meals for the rich in a lifetime of hard labour ... in desperation the dark side of human nature will be infinitely magnified, but [the people who] hurt the innocent really should go to hell".