Hanako Kuribayashi was known as being a thoughtful and good-natured girl, while Satoshi Oyama was recognized as a specialist in the Burmese language and a highly qualified Foreign Ministry official, before they were killed in Tuesday's mass stabbing in Kawasaki.
The two fell victim when a man wielding knives stabbed 17 students and two parents waiting with them for their school bus in the city near Tokyo. The suspect, identified by police as 51-year-old Kawasaki resident Ryuichi Iwasaki, died at a hospital as a result of a self-inflicted stab wound to his neck.
Hanako, 11, was a sixth-grader at Caritas Elementary School, a private Catholic school.