Deadly attacks on childcare centres worldwide

Wednesday's attack on a preschool in southern Brazil, where a man wielding a hatchet-style weapon killed four children, is the latest in a string of deadly assaults on care centres for young children.

Here are some other notorious cases:

 - Feb 2023: Montreal bus ramming -
 

A 51-year old driver rammed his bus into a day care centre in the city of Laval, a suburb of Montreal, Canada, killing two children in February 2023.

Pierre Ny St-Amand was charged with first-degree murder. He drove his bus into the nursery as some parents were dropping off their children.

- Oct 2022: Thailand rampage -
 

A gun and knife rampage by a sacked policeman on a Thai nursery left 24 children and 12 adults dead in October 2022.

Former police sergeant Panya Khamrab, who was laid off after being accused of drug addiction, began his murderous spree at the childcare centre in rural northeastern Nong Bua Lam Phu province.

Following the attack, the 34-year-old drove home and murdered his wife and son before taking his own life.

- April 2022: Russian nursery school -
 

Two children and a teacher were killed in April 2022 when a man opened fire at a nursery school in the central Russian region of Ulyanovsk, before taking his own life.

- Oct 2017: deadly fire in Brazil -
 

Nine children, aged up to four, died in October 2017 when a security guard at a nursery school in Brazil sprayed the children with alcohol and started a fire.

A teacher who tried to save the pupils and a security guard were also killed, with another roughly 40 people injured in Janauba in eastern Brazil.

In May 2021, also in Brazil, an 18-year-old attacker armed with a samurai-style sword burst into a day care centre and killed three children and two staff.

The attacker then turned his weapon on himself, said authorities in southern Santa Catarina state.

- Dec 2014: Peshawar School massacre in Pakistan

Peshawar school massacre, a terrorist attack in which seven heavily armed Taliban fighters stormed an army-run primary and secondary school in Peshawar, Pakistan, on December 16, 2014, killing 150 people, of whom at least 134 were students.- May 2010: China stabbing attacks -

- May 2010: China stabbing attacks -
 

A disgruntled landlord killed seven young children -- five boys and two girls -- and two adults with a meat cleaver in May 2010 at a kindergarten in northern China.

The incident in the city of Hanzhong, which ended with the attacker's suicide, was the fifth attack on children in the country in the span of two months that year.

The kindergarten's operator and her 80-year-old mother also died in the attack.

On August 3, 2022, also in China, a knife attacker killed three people and wounded six others at a kindergarten in southeast China's Jiangxi province.

- Jan 2009: Belgian creche stabbings -
 

A 20-year-old Belgian man killed two infants and a 54-year-old woman employee at a day care centre in Dendermonde, western Belgium in January 2009.

The man barged into the day care with a 30-centimetre (12-inch) long knife and began attacking some of the children lying in beds, none more than three years old.

The man's face was painted white with black around his eyes -- making some think of the Joker character from Batman.

He was arrested an hour later and later sentenced to life in prison.