China woman held for nursery poisoning that killed two

BEIJING: A Chinese woman has been detained for killing two children at a preschool nursery and making 30 others ill with poisoned food, state media said.

The woman – a security guard at the premises angered over having to leave her living quarters – “put poison into a bag of snacks and left it in the classroom”, Xinhua said late Wednesday, citing police in Qiubei county, in the southwestern province of Yunnan.

Two girls aged four and five died, the news agency previously reported following the poisoning on March 19.

Another five pupils were in a critical condition immediately after the poisoning, and a further 25 received hospital treatment.

A Qiubei local official told AFP yesterday that all the sickened pupils had been released from hospital. The suspect, 44-year- old Zhao Jianzhi, had admitted the crime, the Xinhua report said.

China has a shortage of state-run preschool nurseries, and private nurseries in the country are often either very expensive or suffer from poor facilities, unqualified teachers and shortcuts on safety.

Earlier this week, the head of a nursery in the northern province of Hebei and an accomplice were sentenced to death for killing two children with poisoned yoghurt, state-run media reported.

The pair poisoned the children last year in a revenge attack on a rival facility which had higher enrolment, state broadcaster CCTV said. — AFP