Six dead in latest China stabbing spree

Originally published on March 13, 2014

A Uighur food vendor stabbed five people to death in south-central China on Friday morning in an incident authorities have said was not a terrorist attack.

Local police said the stabbing spree stemmed from a dispute between two Uighur vendors in Changsha, the capital city of Hunan province. The attacker used a knife to fatally slash the other vendor. Dayoo, a local online news portal, reported that a woman in her 80s was stabbed by the suspect as he was making his escape. The assailant then proceeded to stab three more bystanders.

Scores of police officers later arrived and the attacker was shot dead.

There have been contradicting reports as to the number of attackers. Some media outlets reported that at least four Uighur vendors were involved in the attack. One attacker was shot dead by police, two were arrested, and the fourth was on the run.

Six people, including the two vendors, were killed. Two of the bystanders were pronounced dead at the hospital.

Tension has been running high between Uighurs and Han Chinese, spurring worries that this knife attack was ethnically motivated. Less than two weeks ago, a group of assailants who were described by Beijing as Xinjiang separatists, started a knifing spree at a train station in the southwestern city of Kunming, leading to 29 deaths and another 143 injuries.