28 dead as knife-wielding attackers descend on Chinese train station

Agence France-Presse
GlobalPost
Mar 1, 2014

A police investigator inspects the scene of an attack at a railway station in Kunming, Yunnan, on March 2, 2014. A mass stabbing at a Chinese train station late on March 1 left 28 people dead and 113 injured in a “violent terrorist attack,” state media said. (STR/AFP/Getty Images)

Victims described knife-wielding attackers dressed in black bursting into Kunming railway station in China’s Yunnan province and slashing indiscriminately.

A mass stabbing at a Chinese train station late Saturday left 28 people dead and 113 injured in a “violent terrorist attack,” state media said.

Victims described knife-wielding attackers dressed in black bursting into Kunming railway station and slashing indiscriminately.

Beijing’s top security official was reported to be heading to the scene.

The incident which happened at around 9 p.m. (1 p.m. GMT) “was an organized, premeditated violent terrorist attack” carried out by “unidentified knife-wielding people,” the official news agency Xinhua said, citing authorities.

Police shot dead five of the attackers at the train station in southwestern Yunnan province, Xinhua reported, and are “chasing the rest.”

A knife victim named Yang Haifei, who was wounded in the chest and back, told Xinhua that he had been buying a train ticket when the attackers approached and had tried to escape with the crowd.

“I saw a person come straight at me with a long knife, and I ran away with everyone,” he said, while others “simply fell on the ground.”

Some who had escaped were desperately looking for missing loved ones.

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