20 students injured after attack at Beijing primary school

Schoolchildren and their parents from a primary school in Beijing were left in shock after a group of the children were attacked by a male suspect on Tuesday morning.

The male suspect attacked them at one of the campuses of the No 1 Affiliated Elementary School of Xuanwu Normal School in Xicheng district at 11:17 am.

Twenty school children were injured and three of them received severe injuries. All injured children have been sent to hospitals for treatment and their conditions are currently not life threatening, the Xicheng government said in a statement released on Tuesday afternoon.

"I was very anxious after learning about the incident in the morning from the WeChat group for the parents of the schoolchildren and immediately rushed to the school," said a mother who wishes to remain anonymous.

Her son in second grade witnessed the attack, she said. "He told me he saw a bad guy charging towards the children. He didn't say a word on our way home."

The campus where the attack happened is only for schoolchildren mainly aged 7 to 8 from the second and third grades.

The mother said the teachers told the parents that all of the injured children were immediately sent to two hospitals. Also, the suspect is believed to be a school worker and not a teacher, she added.

Uniformed crime scene investigators were seen entering the school on Tuesday afternoon while many parents were waiting to pick their children up after classes were over on Tuesday afternoon.

Security at the school has always been tight. The parents need to be registered before entering the school, the parents said.