14th September 2026 – (Guangzhou) Police in Guangzhou’s Panyu district have arrested a 35-year-old man after a knife attack outside a hotpot restaurant on Xiaoguwei Island in the university town, saying several people were hurt but none were in life-threatening condition after treatment.
Online posts on Monday afternoon claimed random stabbings at the GOGO Xintiandi commercial plaza in Xinzao township, Panyu, inside the Guangzhou Higher Education Mega Center. Circulating photographs showed multiple casualties, including an elderly woman with a blade lodged in her face and clothing soaked in blood. One witness alleged the attacker aimed specifically at people’s eyes.
The Panyu branch of the Guangzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau addressed the reports in an official social-media bulletin. It said that at about 5.20pm local time Guangzhou’s 110 emergency line took calls that a man was stabbing people at the entrance of a hotpot restaurant in Xiaoguwei Street. Officers reached the scene quickly, sent the injured to hospital and detained a suspect identified only as Li, a 35-year-old man.
After medical care, the bureau said, none of the wounded faced life-threatening injuries. The case remains under further investigation. The police notice did not publish a full victim count or name the restaurant beyond locating it at a Xiaoguwei hotpot doorway.
GOGO Xintiandi is a one-stop retail and dining complex in the heart of the university town, ringed by campuses and busy with students and shoppers. Netizens linked the viral images to that plaza even as the official alert stuck to the Xiaoguwei Street hotpot address — the same island district that hosts the mall.
The combination of shared-space dining, dense foot traffic and graphic online pictures fuelled rapid rumour. Police moved from emergency calls to arrest and hospital transfers within the same afternoon, then stressed that treatment had stabilised the injured. Investigators are still piecing together how the attack began, how many people were struck and what led Li to the restaurant doorway with a knife.
Authorities have not released a motive. Until the inquiry advances, the confirmed public record is narrow but stark: multiple stabbings outside a Xiaoguwei hotpot outlet shortly after 5.20pm, swift police intervention, a 35-year-old man in custody, and injured people alive and out of immediate danger.