BEIJING (Reuters) - A man stabbed four primary school children to death on Friday in the southern Chinese region of Guangxi, state media said, the latest in a series of knife attacks that have unnerved the country.
In a separate incident, six people were killed in a stampede in a primary school in Kunming, the capital of the southwestern province of Yunnan, state news agency Xinhua said. It did not give details.
Police were hunting a middle-aged man after the knife attack, Xinhua said, citing the public security bureau in Lingshan county in Guangxi. Xinhua did not suggest a motive.
The man attacked the children as they were on their way to school, Xinhua said. Three of them died at the scene and one died later at a nearby hospital.
The attack comes less than a month after a man killed three children and injured several at a primary school in Hubei province.
Violent crime is rare in China compared with many other countries but there has been a series of attacks on schools and children in recent years.
The attacks have led to much soul-searching and calls for measures to improve security at schools in a country were many couples only have one child.
In May, a knife-wielding man stabbed and injured eight students in a primary school in another city in Hubei. In December 2012, a man barged into a village primary school in the central province of Henan and stabbed and injured 23 children.
School guards in China are often not equipped or trained to stop such attacks.
(Reporting by Sui-Lee Wee; Editing by Nick Macfie)