Girl, 11, killed in knife attack at Japan school

‘Unmotivated’ assault also left 39-year-old man dead after suspect charged at pupils with two blades

A SCHOOLGIRL and a 39-year-old man were killed and 15 other girls injured when a man attacked a group of children with a knife at a primary school outside Tokyo yesterday.

Witnesses reported seeing the man slashing at the girls with blades in both hands as they waited in line for their school bus.

The apparently random attack took place in the city of Kawasaki, just south of the capital, as the children waited with their parents at about 7.45am.

The suspect, an unidentified man in his 50s, was detained at the scene and later died from self-inflicted injuries to his shoulder and neck, national broadcaster NHK reported.

Police confirmed the identities of the dead as Hanako Kuribayashi, an 11-yearold female pupil, and Satoshi Oyama, a foreign ministry official who is believed to be the parent of another child at the school.

Another woman was severely injured along with the 15 other schoolgirls, NHK said. The girls, aged between six and 12, were students at a private Catholic school.

One witness told NHK: “I heard screaming, then I saw a man standing with a knife in each hand … Then he crumbled to the ground.”

Police have recovered two knives at the scene, but there have been no reports about a motive for the attack. Images broadcast on Japanese television showed police cars, ambulances and fire engines blocking the narrow streets close to the bus stop.

Roads around the residential district close to Noborito Station were blocked off and large orange tents were put in place over the crime scene.

“I heard the sound of lots of ambulances and I saw a man lying near a bus stop bleeding,” a man told NHK.

“It’s a quiet neighbourhood, it’s scary to see this kind of thing happen,” he added.

Shinzo Abe, the Japanese prime minister, voiced “strong anger” over the attack as he gave his reaction on national television.

He said: “It is a very harrowing case. I feel strong anger. I offer my heartfelt condolences to the victims and hope the injured recover quickly.”

Donald Trump, the US president, who was in the country on the last day of his state visit, said Americans “stand with the people of Japan”.

Standing aboard a Japanese military ship, he offered “prayers and sympathy to the victims of the stabbing”, adding that “all Americans stand with the people of Japan and grieve for the victims and for their families”.

Japan has one of the lowest rates of violent crime in the developed world and large attacks are extremely rare.

In 2018, a man was arrested in central Japan after stabbing one person to death and injuring two others on board a bullet train, prompting new security measures on the rail service.

And in 2016, a man stabbed 19 people to death in a disability centre south of Tokyo in what he described as a mission to rid the world of people with mental illness.