At least two people were killed and another 21 injured in a knife attack in a hospital in China’s southwestern province of Yunnan on Tuesday, local authorities said.
The attack, described by Chinese state media outlet Xinhua as a “violent incident” took place at a local hospital in Zhenxiong county, the news agency reported, adding that authorities were gathering more information.
A separate statement from the county’s public security bureau said it had identified a male suspect from a town in the county. An investigation was on-going into the attack, which took place just before midday at Chengnan Hospital, the statement said.
“Multiple videos from the scene also show a suspect being apprehended by police in a [nearby] wellness center,” Guizhou Television reported earlier in the day.
Officials have not yet confirmed whether the suspect arrested is the attacker.
An eye-witness interviewed by Chinese state media outlet, The Paper, said the situation remained chaotic as authorities worked to assess the situation.
China, where private gun ownership is illegal is for most civilians, has faced a spate of mass stabbings in public places in recent years.
Last year, six people were killed and one injured in an early morning knife attack outside a kindergarten in southern China’s Guangdong. A 2020 knife attack at an elementary school injured 37 children and two adults in the southern Guangxi region, while a 2022 stabbing, also at a kindergarten, killed three and injuring six in eastern Jiangxi province.
Yunnan was also the location of a 2014 knife attack at a train station in the provincial capital of Kunming, where multiple assailants killed 33 people and wounded 133. Authorities blamed terrorists from its Northwestern region of Xinjiang for that attack.
Violence at hospitals is also not unheard of China, where health professionals have a history of facing assault from patients or their families, often over concerns about high costs and standard of treatment.