Police in the Japanese city of Osaka have arrested a man on suspicion of attempted murder after he drove his car into seven schoolchildren, local media said.

The children were walking home from school when the suspect appeared to deliberately drive the car at them on a quiet residential street at about 1.30pm local time (0530 BST), according to the public broadcaster NHK.

A seven-year-old girl suffered a broken jaw and the other children, boys and girls aged seven or eight, are reported to have relatively light injuries. All appeared to be conscious as they were taken to hospital.

Police arrested Yuki Yazawa, 28, an unemployed man from Higashimurayama city in Tokyo, at the scene. It is not clear why he was in Osaka.

“I was just sick of everything, so I decided to drive my car into the elementary school students to kill them,” Yazawa told police, according to NHK.

Teachers from the primary school are reported to have pulled the suspect out of the car, where he had remained after driving into the children.

A mother in her 20s who had come to pick up her son, and who saw the attack, told NHK: “The car was being driven erratically, and it seems that it continued to move forward even after it had hit the children. My son was very shocked and has been crying the whole time. He only just started elementary school last month, and then something like this happened. It’s scary. I saw the man who had been driving the car. He was very quiet and appeared to be in a daze.”

Another witness told NHK that the car had reversed back into the children after crashing into them.

A white SUV that appeared to be the one used by the suspect was being examined by police after the incident.