The car plowed into a group of pupils in front of a school in Huludao, Liaoning province. The social imbalance created by the One-Child policy could be the underlying cause of attacks on children of the past few months.
Beijing (AsiaNews/Agencies) - A car plowed into a crowd of children outside a school in Huludao, a city in the Chinese province of Liaoning, killing at least 5 children and seriously injuring 18, Chinese state TV reported.
CCTV footage shows a line of children crossing the street in front of the school as the car approaches, which then changes lanes and swerves into children.
The driver was taken into custody, but it is still unclear whether this was a deliberate attack. In recent months, several episodes of this kind have occurred in China.
Last month, a knife-wielding man drove a vehicle into a crowd of pedestrians in the eastern city of Ningbo, killing two people and wounding 16.
In September, 11 people were killed and 44 hospitalised after a man drove an SUV deliberately into people at a plaza in the central province of Hunan, before jumping out and attacking victims with a dagger and shovel.
For decades, China experienced a radical drop in the birth rate due to the infamous One-Child policy, adopted by Deng Xiaoping, which allowed couples only one child.
This has led to a social imbalance, which – according to some estimates – left 40 million men without any possibility of finding a wife and having children.
This, psychologists warn, may be the cause behind hatred towards children by mentally unstable people. At the same time, it has permanent damaged the country’s pension and healthcare system.