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140 killed in ethnic unrest in China

— Photo: AFP

The burnt wreckage of a bus and stalls on a street in Urumqi in China’s Xinjiang province on Monday.

BEIJING: At least 140 people were killed and 828 others injured in China’s western Muslim-majority region of Xinjiang in what is possibly the biggest violence the country has seen since the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. On Sunday afternoon, mass riots broke out in the regions capital Urumqi following a protest march carried out by hundreds of native Uighur Muslims who were calling for an investigation into incidents of racial violence between Uighurs and China’s majority Han Chinese ethnic group that took place in southern China last week. On June 26, a mass brawl between migrant Uighur workers and Han Chinese in a Guangdong factory left 2 Uighurs dead and 118 others injured.

Witnesses to Sunday’s violence told The Hindu that armed mobs clashed on the city’s streets, assaulting passers-by, torching vehicles and setting buildings on fire. Footage of the incidents broadcast on State television channel Chinese Central Television (CCTV) showed burning buses, heavy smoke coming from buildings and mobs assaulting random passers-by, including women. Heavily armed police were seen on Sunday night and Monday morning rounding up hundreds of suspects.

Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking ethnic group, constitute a majority of Xinjiang’s population and are one of 55 minority groups in China. Xinjiang, on China’s west frontier, has seen intermittent tensions between native Uighurs and Han Chinese who have migrated to the region in large numbers.

It was not clear how many deaths were at the hands of the rioters and how many were as a result of police firing. Local officials said 57 bodies were recovered from the city’s streets, and others were pronounced dead at hospitals. Sunday’s violence marks the biggest ethnic unrest China has seen since the uprisings in Tibet last March. As was the case then, the provincial government on Monday blamed an exiled separatist organisation for orchestrating the incidents. In a statement, the provincial government said the World Uighur Congress, an exiled group that has in the past accused the Chinese government of restricting religious freedoms of ethnic Uighurs and has called for Uighur independence, had “instigated unrest via the Internet and other means.”

Yang Shangpeng (21), a Han Chinese college student, was at Urumqi’s crowded Grand Bazaar marketplace at the heart of the city’s Uighur neighbourhood when the riot first broke out on Sunday evening. Mr. Yang told The Hindu over the telephone from Urumqi he saw torched cars, broken stones on the city’s streets and burning buildings. “There were mobs on the streets setting fire to cars and attacking shops,” he said. According to Mr. Yang, the city had been placed under curfew by 9 p.m. on Sunday evening. The situation had returned to normal by Monday afternoon, he said.

(Bao BeiBei contributed to reporting.)

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