Three dead and 15 injured in stabbing at Walmart in Shanghai

Three people were killed and 15 others injured in a knife attack at a Walmart supermarket in Shanghai on Monday evening. Chinese police arrested a 37-year-old man surnamed Lin at the scene, saying he had come to Shanghai to “vent his anger over a personal economic dispute.” The attack occurred in Songjiang, a densely populated district in the southwest of the city that is home to several universities. While three victims succumbed to their injuries in hospital, police confirmed that the remaining injured suffered non-life-threatening injuries.

Eyewitnesses described a chaotic and frightening scene at the mall. Shi, owner of a jewelry store in Ludu International Commercial Plaza, said: “There was blood everywhere.” He recounted the moments of panic as SWAT officers and firefighters flooded the mall and urged people to evacuate. “No one had ever experienced anything like this and we were not mentally prepared for it,” Shi said, adding that he narrowly escaped the attack.

After the incident, discussions on Chinese social media were apparently censored. The Walmart store reopened Tuesday with increased safety precautions.

While firearms are banned in China, there has been an increase in knife attacks in the country in recent months. In August, a 10-year-old Japanese student was fatally stabbed near his school in southern China, and there were several violent knife attacks earlier this year, including an attack on four U.S. college teachers in Jilin and another at a hospital in Yunnan province .

The investigation into Monday’s attack is ongoing.

Melissa Enoch

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