The injured children are receiving treatment in hospital.

Their exact ages have not been given but reports suggest they may be middle school children, which would make them aged 12 to 15.

Knife attacks have made the headlines in China in recent years:

• A spate of unconnected stabbings at schools between 2010 and 2012 left at least 25 dead and more than 100 injured

• The country executed three men in March 2015 after they were found guilty of a savage knife attack at Kunming station, where 29 people were hacked to death and more than 100 others wounded. The trio had been convicted of murder and terrorism offences

• In July 2017, two people died and nine were injured by a knife-wielding man at a Wal-Mart supermarket in the southern city of Shenzhen

• In February, a knifeman killed a woman and injured 12 others at a Beijing shopping centre