The events occurred on the campus of Hosei University in Tokyo (Japan). A 22-year-old student allegedly attacked her classmates in class with a hammer, injuring eight of them.
A hammer attack did eight injured on Friday in a University of Tokyo (Japan)before the assailant, a 22 year old studentneither apprehended by law enforcementJapanese media announced.
None of the injured people lost consciousness, said public television NHK, according to which the attack took place on the Tama Campus of Hosei Universityin the Machida district.
According to NHK and other Japanese media, the attacker was a sociology student who brandished a hammer in the middle of class. She reportedly said she felt pent-up frustrations after being ignored, according to some media reports.
The incident reportedly occurred around 4 p.m. local time (8 a.m. French time). Campus staff reportedly arrested her after she behaved violently. The Japanese press indicated that several people had been seen on site with bloody heads.
Asked by AFP, the police were not able to immediately confirm these details.
Images broadcast live by NHK showed a long line of emergency vehicles and ambulances, their lights flashing, heading towards the university site in the Machida district. Hosei University was founded in 1880 as a law institute, and today has 15 departments, according to its website.
Attack at McDonald’s
Violent crime is rare in Japan, as the archipelago has strict gun control regulations.
However, stabbing attacks, even shootings like the attack which cost the life of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in 2022, sometimes occur in the country.
In December, a schoolboy died after being stabbed and another was injured during an attack at a McDonald’s in Kitakyushu (southwest Japan), following which a man was subsequently arrested.
-The teenagers were waiting in line on a Saturday evening to order their dinner when, according to media reports, the assailant burst into the restaurant and rushed at them.
In 2019, two people, including a schoolgirl, were stabbed and killed, and more than a dozen injured, in the city of Kawasaki, near Tokyo, in an attack by an attacker targeting children as they were waiting for a bus.
The 51-year-old man then killed himself by hitting himself in the neck.
Previous attack in front of a university
Universities have also recently been the scene of such attacks: in January 2022, three people were stabbed in front of the prestigious Tokyo University before the national higher education entrance exams.
Among the victims were an 18-year-old boy, a 17-year-old girl and a 72-year-old man, police said at the time.
A 17-year-old young man was arrested at the gates of the university after this attack which occurred in the early morning: he did not show up for exams and did not know the three victims but declared to the police that he “wanted to die after causing a incident because he did not do well in his studies,” according to NHK.
The two teenagers targeted did not receive life-threatening injuries, but the septuagenarian was seriously injured, according to local media.
According to NHK, the exam, which brought together some 3,700 students, took place as planned on the same day.
