Several Children Killed as Car Hits Crowd Near School in Beijing, Witnesses Say
Udumbara
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A vehicle struck several children near a primary school in Beijing on Thursday. Witnesses told The Epoch Times that 11 people were hit, including six children who died at the scene. There has been no official confirmation of how many were hit or whether there were any fatalities.
Local police preliminarily attributed the incident to the driver’s “improper operation” of the vehicle, but a man, who said he headed to the scene after the incident, told the Chinese-language edition of The Epoch Times the driver had been in a heated argument with his wife.
Photos of the aftermath were quickly removed from social media sites, and comments on what had happened were taken down.
In a short statement published on the Chinese social media platform WeChat, Beijing’s Miyun County Public Security Bureau identified a 35-year-old man only by the surname Han, and said he was driving the vehicle when the incident occurred at the junction of Yucai Road and Dongmen Street at around 1 p.m. local time.
A preliminary investigation found that Han had “collided with pedestrian(s) owing to improper operation” of the vehicle, the statement says, without specifying the number of victims. It added that the investigation was ongoing.
The police also said the victims were “promptly taken to hospital for treatment,” and didn’t confirm or dispute online reports about fatalities.
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The report said Peking University Hospital confirmed to Caixin that it was treating some of the injured children, while several others were sent to the Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine.
A witness who arrived at the scene after the tragedy told The Epoch Times that he saw several children lying on the ground and that they appeared to be beyond saving. He said 11 people were hit, including adults and children, and that six children died at the scene.
According to the man, whose identity is being withheld to protect him from retaliation by the Chinese regime, the children were returning to classes after lunch when they were struck by the car.
The man added that he couldn’t say much because many people who revealed information related to the incident had been warned by the police not to do so.
Another witness told The Epoch Times that the driver had rammed into the children when they were crossing the road.
There have been several recent cases in China of people being struck by cars, often outside schools. There have also been knife attacks in crowds. Police have typically said the attacks were random, attributing them to anger or depression.
Since then, reports about the attacks have been censored, apparently in an attempt to prevent copycat crimes.
