BEIJING (Reuters) - A court in southern China has put a man to death after he injured 12 children in a knife attack at a kindergarten, the state broadcaster said on Monday.

Violent crime is rare in China but there has been a series of knife and axe attacks in recent years, many targeting children.

China Central Television said that in January 2017 Qin Pengan stabbed the children with a vegetable knife in order to extract revenge for his life not going as he wanted and a dispute with a neighbor.

None of the children died from their injuries.

A local court in Pingxiang city in south China’s Guangxi province sentenced Qin to death, and the sentence was carried out on Friday after being approved by the China’s Supreme People’s Court, the broadcaster said.

Despite efforts to reduce the number of people executed every year, China still puts more people to death every year than any other country, according to estimates from rights groups.

A Supreme People’s Court judge in December made a rare defense of the death penalty, saying that China could not abolish the system for fear of angering a public that overwhelmingly supports its use.