Cockroach kindergarten principal detained by authorities

The principal of an eastern China kindergarten has been detained after two of her schools fed children smelly chicken legs, expired seasoning and rice with insects, a district government announced Sunday.

Jiujiang district government in the city of Wuhu, Anhui Province, held a news conference Sunday to announce that two kindergartens, Tongxin and Dedebei, have been involved in feeding toddlers with expired seasoning and rice with insects, according to the Wuhu government website on Monday.

The kindergartens’ food and kitchen equipment have been sent for inspection and the government will publish the results of their food examination within seven days, the government said.

Tongxin Kindergarten parents told the Global Times that they were first alerted to the issue by their children talking about chicken legs that were “smelly inside.”

Some parents then climbed the school’s fences to find rice crawling with insects, seasoning with a 2015 expiry date and refrigerated meat with a 2017 expiry date.

The principal was detained on Saturday. The police and government did not fully name the suspect.

The Wuhu government said they organized children to undergo a medical checkup at hospitals in Anhui and invited medical experts from nearby city of Nanjing, capital of East China’s Jiangsu Province, to examine the children.

About 500 students already underwent examinations, said the government of Wuhu.

Results suggested some children’s spleens were swollen. In addition, some children’s neuronal enolase (NSE) tests came in higher than normal.

Rumors of children being diagnosed with cancer and tumors have spread online since the incident, an anonymous source familiar with the case told the Global Times Monday.

“Indicators on the medical checkup chart freaked out many parents who don’t have much medical knowledge… so they said their babies were diagnosed with cancer,” he said.

Rumormongers will be held legally liable, Wuhu government warned. It urged net users to treat rumors with rationality.

Parents blocked roads and government buildings in Wuhu and engaged in conflict with police, according to some videos and pictures briefly circulating online.

One parent refused to be fully named told the Global Times that “the government said they had organized buses to send these children for checkups and then instead sent them back to school.”

Some parents held banners and blocked the traffic, according to the parent.

Wuhu government said that they will assign legal responsibility to those who blocked the road and disrupted social and traffic order.