Eight children hurt in China stabbing spree

Eight children were injured on Monday after being stabbed by a staff member at a child-care centre for migrant workers in Shanghai, China.

The knife attack happened around noon, at the Little Happiness Star nursery in the eastern Minhang district.

Xinmin Evening News said on its website that a female worker used a “box cutter” to “slash at children” aged between three and four years old. One child was seriously hurt.

The woman — who worked at the nursery for several years and is believed to suffered psychiatric problems — has reportedly been taken into custody.

The incident was the latest in a series of attacks on children. Fifteen children died and 80 more were wounded in attacks that took place at schools across the country last year.

(Read more on GlobalPost: China soul searching after kindergarten massacres)

The BBC reports that in one such attack, in March 2010, in the city of Ninping, doctor Zheng Minsheng was executed a month after stabbing eight young children to death.

Seven children and two adults were hacked to death two months later at a kindergarten in Hanzhong city. The attacker later killed himself.

The deaths have prompted calls for tighter security at schools and kindergartens.