Chinese Child Killed in Latest School Attack

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BEIJING (Reuters) - A Chinese man kidnapped 19 primary schoolchildren and killed one of the hostages, official media reported on Thursday, the latest in a series of school attacks around the country.

Yang Xinlong, from Luoying in China's northern province of Henan, hacked a fellow villager to death before taking the children hostage, Xinhua news agency said.

He was shot and wounded by police after refusing to surrender -- but not before he killed the child, Xinhua said. It did not say how the child died.

The 18 other children were rescued, Xinhua said, and Yang was taken into custody.

There have been a series of attacks on schools and schoolchildren around China, some by people who have lost their jobs or felt left out of the country's economic boom.

Earlier this month, a man set fire to a kindergarten classroom, killing three children and injuring 14 people.

Last October, a man shot and wounded 16 children exercising in a schoolyard in impoverished Anhui province to the south.

A carpenter broke into a school in southern China in April last year and cut off part of a boy's ear with a kitchen knife and half a girl's middle finger.

Two children and a teacher were killed in 2004 in two separate kindergarten attacks in Beijing.

A Chinese bus driver stabbed and wounded 25 primary school children in the eastern province of Shandong in September 2004. The same month, a man wielding a knife and homemade bombs injured 28 children in the eastern city of Suzhou.