BEIJING • A knife-wielding assailant hacked at children in a Chinese schoolyard yesterday, wounding 10 before killing himself, police and reports said, the latest such attack in the country.

Pupils were lining up to go home when the man struck, slashing at several children before fleeing, the state-run China News Service cited a witness as saying.

A passer-by saw several children with their faces covered in blood being bandaged, it added.

The 10 injured in the incident in Haikou on the southern island of Hainan comprised six boys and four girls, the report said. Two were severely wounded, but neither was in a life-threatening condition.

"I thought my child would be safe at school. I didn't think something like this would happen," the mother of a seven-year-old told the Nanhai Online news portal at the hospital where her son was being treated.

The assailant was identified as Li Sijun, 45, who later killed himself, reports said, adding that no motive had been determined.

In 2014, a man stabbed three children and a teacher to death and wounded several others at a primary school in Hubei province that refused to enrol his daughter. And in a March 2013 incident, a man killed two relatives and then slashed 11 people, including six children, outside a school in Shanghai.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE