(Update) Memorial Held for Victims of School Stabbing 24 Years Ago

   Ikeda, Osaka Pref., June 8 (Jiji Press)--A memorial service was held Sunday for the victims of the knife attack that happened at an elementary school in Osaka Prefecture, western Japan, 24 years ago.
   At the ceremony held at Ikeda Elementary School, affiliated with Osaka Kyoiku University, about 760 participants, including bereaved relatives, school officials and students, offered silent prayers at 10:12 a.m., the time when the incident occurred on June 8, 2001.
   They also rang a bell installed at a monument inscribed with the names of the children who lost their lives in the attack.
   In the incident, a 37-year-old man broke into the school with a knife, killing eight students--a first-grade boy and seven second-grade girls--and injuring 15 other people--13 students and two teachers. The attacker, Mamoru Takuma, was executed in September 2004.
   Shinichi Arakawa, 51, principal of the school, told the ceremony, "The school did not assume (at the time) that a suspicious person would break into its premises."

(2025/06/08-13:14)

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