Bystander in China films woman being stabbed to death but fails to stop the attack or alert police

A video of a woman being stabbed to death in southern China on 7 April has sparked a public outcry as the person who filmed the horrific incident failed to alert the authorities or stop the attack. The footage shows a woman screaming on the ground after her waist was slashed three times by a young man with a knife who later fled the scene.

The film was shared widely across social media, State-owned Guangdong Television reported. It said by the time an ambulance arrived at the back alley in the Changan township in southern Dongguan, the 20-year-old woman had already died.

The suspect was caught by police shortly after the attack. However local residents said that they were deeply saddened by the fact that the person who filmed the attack had not even tried to call the police.

"If that onlooker could have called for help promptly, the woman may not have died," a resident in the neighbourhood was quoted as saying by the local media. The person who took the video is believed to have been standing from a window right above where the incident took place.

Police said that they believe the suspect and the victim were lovers. They believe the suspect could have attacked the woman because he thought she was cheating on him.

This is not the first time that bystanders have stood by doing nothing when someone is attacked. Only last week, a woman was brutally beaten by a man in a Beijing hotel with no one coming to her assistance. The incident, like the one above, was also captured by the hotel's CCTV.

In 2015, a CCTV emerged of a 57-year-old man staggering before collapsing by a road. Cars and pedestrians ignored him and he later died. Similarly, in 2011, another video emerged of a two-year-old girl being hit by a car and left on the road as passers-by ignored her. Sadly, she also died of her injuries.