Nanping school massacre
school stabbing in Nanping, Fujian, China

The Nanping school massacre (Chinese: 福建南平校园惨案) occurred at Nanping City Experimental Elementary School in the city of Nanping, Fujian Province, China, in which a man used a knife to kill eight children and seriously wound five others. The incident occurred on 23 March 2010, around 7:20 am local time. It was the first incident in a string of school attacks in China. The perpetrator later confessed to the crime, telling police investigators that "life was meaningless".
Incident and casualties
The children were attacked outside the gates by a man as they were arriving for school at 7:20 am local time (UTC+8). (Before the attacks, it was the school's practice to keep the gates shut until school began at 7:30 am) The perpetrator was subdued on the scene by three adults. Of the eight fatalities, six died at the scene and the other two later in hospital. The deceased were four boys and four girls.
The school, which at the time had around 2,000 students, closed for the day on 23 March before reopening the following day.
Perpetrator
Zheng Minsheng (30 April 1968 – 28 April 2010) who had previously worked as a community doctor, was arrested.
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Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q13651871. Authority coordinates are 26.642, 118.178. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2010 and 1968.
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This entry incorporates text from “Nanping school massacre” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.