Factbox: Attacks on Chinese schools this year

BEIJING (Reuters) - There have been six attacks on Chinese schools in the last two months, leaving 18 people dead and more than 80 wounded.

The attacks have raised concerns about school safety in a country where many couples have only one child, and raised questions about the social tensions behind the attacks.

Below is a chronology of the school attacks:

MARCH 23, FUJIAN PROVINCE

Unemployed doctor Zheng Minsheng, 41, killed eight children and injured five others with a knife at a primary school in Nanping county. He told the court he had been jilted by a wealthy girlfriend.

Zheng was executed on April 28, the same day as another attack.

APRIL 12, GUANGXI AUTONOMOUS REGION

Yang Qingming killed a boy and an older woman in an attack on parents and pupils outside a primary school in Hepu, in the southwestern border region of Guangxi. He stabbed two other adults and three children.

Police said Yang, who was in his 40s, was mentally ill.

APRIL 28, GUANGDONG PROVINCE

Chen Kangbing, 33, broke into a primary school in Leizhou, Guangdong province, and stabbed 16 students and one teacher with a knife. He had been laid off as a teacher at a nearby school district.

APRIL 29, JIANGSU PROVINCE

Xu Yuyuan, 47, a copy store owner, attacked children in a schoolyard in a busy neighborhood of small shops in Taixing, near the Yangtze River. He stabbed 28 children, two teachers and a security guard with a 20-cm knife before being overpowered by neighborhood shopkeepers wielding a fire extinguisher.

Neighbors said Xu was saddled with debts and had fought with a business partner.

APRIL 30, SHANDONG PROVINCE

Villager Wang Yonglai injured five children with a hammer at a rural kindergarten in Weifang, Shandong Province. Two children were pulled away from him as he doused himself with gasoline, and burned to death.

Wang was in despair after local officials said they would tear down his newly-built house, which had been constructed on land zoned as farmland, his wife and sister-in-law told Reuters.

MAY 12, SHAANXI PROVINCE

A 48-year old man entered a classroom in rural Nanzheng county, Shaanxi province, at around 8 a.m. and hacked five boys, two girls and their teacher to death with a meat cleaver. He wounded another adult and 11 other children, two seriously.

The Xinhua news agency said he then committed suicide.

(Reporting by Lucy Hornby and Huang Yan; Editing by Jeremy Laurence)