AKIPRESS.COM - At least seven students have been stabbed to death and 12 injured in a knife attack outside a school in northern China, BBC reports.

The knife-wielding man attacked the students near Mizhi County Number Three secondary school in Shaanxi province as they were heading home for the day.

A suspect is in police custody.

Chinese police have given his surname as Zhao and say he is a 28-year-old former student of the school.

Their preliminary assessment is that he was motivated to take revenge because he was bullied in his third year (where students are typically aged 13-14), the BBC's Stephen McDonell reports.

7 children died, another 12 injured after being attacked after school in Mizhi, NW China's #Shaanxi province on Friday; The suspect has been detained and the injured are receiving treatment at hospital, the local government said pic.twitter.com/ap3VYiDMBL

— People's Daily,China (@PDChina) April 27, 2018