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Clampdown in Urumqi

— Photo: AFP

Chinese riot police watch an Uighur woman protest in Urumqi in Xinjiang province on Tuesday.

BEIJING: For a third day running, heavily-armed mobs stalked the streets of Urumqi, capital city of China’s Muslim-majority Xinjiang region, as tensions between Uighur Muslims and Han Chinese ethnic groups ran high in what is the biggest ethnic unrest China has seen in recent memory.

Mass riots broke out in Urumqi on Sunday afternoon and over two days, 156 people were killed and more than 1,000 injured in the violence. Chinese government officials said on Tuesday most of the victims were Han Chinese, and they blamed the violence on an exiled Uighur separatist organisation. On Tuesday, protests had spread from Urumqi to the city of Kashgar in Xinjiang’s west. Officials said they had arrested 1,434 suspects in Urumqi by Tuesday morning and that police and military forces had restored order to the city. But several protests and incidents of violence continued to be reported on Tuesday. A group of Uighurs, mostly women, reportedly confronted the police on Tuesday, accusing officials of arresting innocent men. By Tuesday evening, retaliatory violence by Han Chinese was feared, with heavily armed Han Chinese mobs seen organising amid a heavy military clampdown, though no specific incidents were reported.

Zhang Xia (45), a Han Chinese woman working in Urumqi, told The Hindu that several areas of the city, particularly the Uighur neighbourhoods, were under heavy military presence. “There is no one on the streets except for the military,” she said. On Tuesday afternoon there were reports of mobs of several hundred Han Chinese organising themselves “with sticks and stones”. “They are full of rage and looking for revenge,” she said. “But the police are trying to restrain them from further attacks.”

“There were mobs on the streets setting fire to cars and attacking shops,” said Yang Shangpeng (21), a Han Chinese college student.

Chang Ting (20), a nurse at an Urumqi maternity and child care centre, told The Hindu that while normalcy had been restored by Monday evening, there was a palpable sense of fear in the city. “The area around our hospital is now heavily guarded by police with sticks and shields,” she said. “But all the patients are afraid and many who haven’t even recovered from their injuries have gone home. They feel safer in their own homes rather than in public buildings.”

Urumqi, a city of 23 lakh people, is the only city in Xinjiang where Uighurs are a minority population. Xinjiang has seen intermittent tensions between native Uighurs and Han Chinese who have migrated to the region in large numbers ever since the Chinese government introduced a “Go West” policy to modernise the backward region.

The Chinese government on Tuesday denied that the violence was any sign of social instability and blamed the incidents on “separatist forces attempting to ruin national unity” who were “afraid to see the development in Xinjiang”.

“Sunday’s riot was a premeditated and organised crime,” said Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang. He said the Chinese government had evidence that the riot was master-minded by an exiled Uighur separatist leader, Rebiya Kadeer, who now lives in Washington, D.C. Ms. Kadeer heads an exiled group called the World Uighur Congress which has accused China of persecuting Uighurs and has called for Xinjiang’s independence.

She has denied having any role in Sunday’s violence, which she said was “a reaction to China’s repressive policies” in the region.

(Bao BeiBei contributed to reporting.)

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