A schoolgirl was stabbed to death and another schoolboy injured Saturday by an unknown assailant at a McDonald’s restaurant in southwest Japan, media reported.
The middle school students were taken to hospital after the attack in the town of Kitakyushu, in Fukuoka Prefecture, the Jiji news agency said.
The teenager died, while the injured boy was conscious.*
A rare crime
Police were searching for a suspect who fled the crime scene around 8:30 p.m., according to Jiji. The suspect is believed to be armed with a knife, the agency said, citing police.
Violent crime is rare in Japan, which has strict gun control laws. Stabbings and even shootings have occurred occasionally, such as the shooting assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in 2022.
In 2019, two people, including a schoolgirl, were stabbed to death and more than a dozen were injured in the city of Kawasaki by an assailant who attacked a group of children waiting for a bus. The 51-year-old assailant attacked the children in a burst of violence before stabbing himself fatally in the neck.
Canada
