An 11-year-old girl slashed a female classmate to death with a razorknife yesterday in a shocking attack in an elementary school in southern Japan, police said.

　　The lunchtime assault happened in a classroom in Sasebo, 980 kilometers southwest of Tokyo, an official with the Nagasaki Prefectural police said.

　　Police in Sasebo said the victim suffered wounds to the neck and arms. She was stabbed with a small knife with a retractable razor used to cut paper.

　　Police identified the victim as Satomi Mitarai, 12. The name of the attacker was not released, according to Japanese legal protections for juvenile offenders.

　　"I can't understand at all how it happened," said the victim's father, Kyoji Mitarai, who told reporters his daughter always seemed to get along with her classmates.

　　"When I arrived, Satomi was already lying there collapsed. I couldn't believe what I was seeing before my eyes," he said.

　　Mitarai's bleeding body was discovered in a third-floor classroom by a teacher who called police.

　　"A girl's body was lying face down on the floor. She was unconscious and not breathing. There was no heartbeat and no one else was at the scene," said Kazuyoshi Tominaga, an official at the Sasebo Central Fire Department.

　　Agents quickly apprehended the young suspect, who was being questioned. Prefectural police said she had confessed, though they did not yet have a motive. TV footage showed police guarding the school and inspecting the classroom where the attack apparently happened.

　　The killing was committed during lunchtime, which in Japan is taken in the classroom. The stabbing, however, happened in a class where children were not eating.

　　Public broadcaster NHK quoted a teacher saying she first noticed something was wrong when the two girls were missing at the beginning of lunch period. One of the girls showed up smeared with blood shortly after, the report quoted the unnamed teacher saying.

　　Increasing violence in Japan's schools and among youth has been a rising concern in recent years.

　　(The Associated Press)