Beijing (AsiaNews/Xinhua) - A man was arrested in connection with the deaths of eight boys stabbed as they slept in a dormitory, Chinese officials said. The suspect was captured thanks to a tip-off to police from his mother after he tried to commit suicide, Chinese media reported. Four other children were wounded in the same attack at a secondary school in the city of Ruzhou, in Henan province.

Police arrested Yan Yanming, 21, in Ruzhou in connection with the attack after his mother reported him, according to Xinhua news agency. In the incident—the sixth in four months—the man got into the city's Number 2 High School and stabbed the victims in their beds. Two of the four students who survived the attack were seriously injured, local news reports said.

Last Wednesday, another man who wounded 25 children after attacking them in a school in September was executed. The Court imposed the death sentence even though no one was killed because of the extreme cruelty of the act.

In August a man suffering from schizophrenia killed a child and wounded 17 other people (14 children and 3 teachers) in a pre-school, in Beijing neighbourhood inhabited by top Communist Party leaders.

Always in September, a man wielding a knife and carrying gasoline and a rudimentary explosive device rushed inside a childhood centre in Suzhou injuring 28 children.

Worried by the violence, schools in the capital, Beijing, and other regions have begun employing professional guards to protect students.