Knife Attack in Southern China Sparks Dispute Over Casualties, Motive

A knife attack in southern China’s Guangxi region left multiple police officers and civilians injured on May 22, according to an official police statement shared via Tencent’s Chinese news portal QQ News.

The incident occurred in Wushi Town, Luchuan County, where authorities said a 30-year-old man surnamed Wen attacked people with a knife at around 9:50 a.m., injuring two civilians and five police officers before being detained. All injured individuals were taken to the hospital for treatment, the Luchuan County Public Security Bureau said in a statement.

Footage shared online appears to show a man in dark clothing rushing through a crowded market area, repeatedly stabbing a traffic police officer. The officer appears seriously injured and collapses on the roadside before bystanders transport him away on an electric scooter for medical care.

The videos also show multiple officers attempting to subdue the attacker using batons and polearms, but the suspect continues to resist and injures additional officers during the confrontation.

The full context of the footage could not be independently verified.

Residents who spoke to The Epoch Times said the death toll was higher and that the attack was a deliberate act of revenge against traffic police. The residents spoke on condition of anonymity or only publishing their surnames out of fear of reprisal.

One resident told The Epoch Times that the attack occurred during a busy market day, when traffic police were conducting vehicle checks.

“He had four or five knives. They were sharpened. It was premeditated. He came directly for the traffic police,” the resident said.

He also alleged that official reports understated casualties, claiming one traffic police officer and one civilian vendor were killed, and six others were injured.

“The streets were covered in blood. He stabbed and ran. It was chaotic,” he said.

The resident added that the suspect later fled to a closed supermarket, where he allegedly held a woman hostage before surrendering after his mother arrived at the scene and persuaded him to turn himself in.

These claims cannot be independently verified by The Epoch Times.

Another resident, surnamed Li, told The Epoch Times he was in the town that morning taking his child to a clinic, and later passed through the area after the attack.

He described seeing police cordoning off the scene and said blood was visible along a stretch of street.

“From one end of the road to the other, it was all [blood],” he said.

Li also said he heard from bystanders that an elderly man and a motorcycle taxi driver were among the injured, and that some victims appeared to have suffered severe injuries.

“When officers rushed toward him, they couldn’t stop him at first. Some of them got stabbed while trying to hold him down,” he said.

The official police statement confirmed that the suspect was taken into custody and that all injured individuals were hospitalized, but did not report any fatalities.

Ning Haizhong and Gu Xiaohua contributed to this report.