Global News

At least one young schoolgirl has been confirmed dead after a stabbing attack near Japan‘s capital, Tokyo, that also left several people wounded, local media cited police as saying

National broadcaster NHK said the suspect in the attack on Tuesday morning in Kawasaki city had also died from a self-inflicted wound.

Previously, emergency services had said two people, including a child, were “showing no vital signs”, a phrase commonly used in Japan before death is officially confirmed.

The Kawasaki City fire department put the number of wounded at 19, including three with severe injuries.

The suspect, a man probably in his 40s or 50s, was unconscious when he was detained after stabbing himself in the neck, NHK said.

The man was said to have begun slashing at people as they waited at the bus stop and then on the bus, it said.

“I heard screaming, then I saw a man standing with a knife in each hand,” NHK quoted an unidentified witness as saying. “Then he crumbled to the ground.”

Two knives were found at the scene, NHK said.

Al Jazeera’s Wayne Hay, reporting from Tokyo, said the attack took place very close to a train station and at a time when the area was likely to be very busy with commuters.

“I heard the sound of lots of ambulances and I saw a man lying near a bus stop bleeding,” an eyewitness, who was not identified, told NHK.

“There is another bus stop near the elementary school and I also saw elementary schoolchildren lying on the ground … It’s a quiet neighbourhood, it’s scary to see this kind of thing happen,” he added.

Footage broadcast on local TV stations showed multiple police cars, ambulances and fire engines at the scene.

Emergency medical tents were put up to treat the wounded.

Source: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/05/japan-stabbing-attack-children-wounded-kawasaki-190528001822735.html