A 11-year-old girl has been killed in a stabbing rampage targeted at schoolgirls in Japan
Japan Times reports that a 11-year-old girl has been killed in a stabbing rampage in Kawasaki that targeted schoolgirls.
A 39-year-old man was also killed with 17 others injured including 15 elementary schoolgirls and a boy.
11-year-old Hanako Kuribayashi was a sixth grader from Tama, Tokyo. 39-year-old Satoshi Oyama was a Foreign Ministry official and was a father of a child at the scene who was not injured. He suffered stab wounds in the back and shoulders from defending other children.
The culprit, 51-year-old Ryuichi Iwasaki, was seen dressed in a black shirt and pants with glasses. He approached a group of schoolgirls from Caritas Elementary School, a private Catholic school, waiting at a bus stop in Tama Ward.
Iwasaki then attacked the girls with knives in both hands. Witnesses heard children hsouting, “Help me!” and “Dad and Mom, what should I do?” The attacker then took his own life by stabbing himself in the neck.
“I heard children scream ‘I’m scared’ and then turned to see a man with knives shouting, ‘I’m gonna kill you,’” said Toshichika Ishii, 57, who was at a park near the site.
A bus driver said, “I tried to stop him, but he started stabbing children and others. He then moved dozens of meters away and stabbed his own neck.”
A bus driver for the elementary school, Kazuhiro Yoshida, said he saw “pools of blood” at the scene. “A man in dark clothing was lying on the ground and did not move a bit,” Yoshida said.
Authorities found two knives with blades measuring 30cm each at the site. Another two knives were found in the suspect’s bag.
In a statement, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said, “we must keep our children safe at all costs. I’ve instructed the related ministers to take immediate action to ensure the children’s safety in going to and leaving school.”
