ISTANBUL: Tokyo urged China to guarantee the safety of Japanese citizens following the stabbing death of a boy in Shenzhen, a city in southern China.

Japanese government spokesperson Yoshimasa Hayashi stated that Japan has been and will continue to strongly pressure China to provide details about the attack and to ensure the security of Japanese nationals in the country.

The incident involved a 44-year-old man who allegedly stabbed a 10-year-old Japanese student on Wednesday near a school in Shenzhen, which hosts nearly 3,600 Japanese residents, as reported by Kyodo News from Tokyo.

The Shenzhen municipal government, located in Guangdong province, expressed regret over the tragedy.

The boy, who was with his mother at the time of the attack, succumbed to his injuries early Thursday morning.

“We are deeply saddened” by the boy’s death, Hayashi remarked.

The motive behind the attack remains unclear.

Recently, there have been several knife-related incidents in China. For instance, a Chinese woman was killed in June while attempting to protect a Japanese mother and her child from a knife attack in Suzhou, near Shanghai.

Japanese Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa condemned the incident as “despicable” and called on Beijing to take all necessary measures to ensure the safety of Japanese citizens.