Fighting in Xinjiang Leaves 15 Killed

Violence in China became more pronounced this weekend as China‘s Xinjiang region, once known for its domestic peace was shattered with 15 people dead, including three killed during or after a bombing attack Sunday afternoon and four attackers shot dead an hour later by Chinese security forces, according to official news agency accounts and residents reached by telephone.

The Sunday violence follows an incident reported late Saturday, when two bombs exploded, and two assailants reportedly hijacked a truck, stabbing the driver and ramming the vehicle into a crowd of pedestrians, killing seven people and injuring 22. The crowd reportedly killed one of the hijackers.

The violence occurred in the border town of Kashgar, the old Silk Road city in far Western Xinjiang near the border with Tajikistan.

Security officials blamed the upsurge of violence on “rioters,” the term often used for Xinjiang’s Muslim Uigher separatists who have staged mostly low-level attacks against Chinese government rule.

Dilxat Raxit, a representative for the German-based World Uigher Congress, said that from his information, “a curfew was imposed on the whole city of Kashgar, and more than 100 Uighers were detained. The incident is unbelievable, but we have to face it.”

He blamed the Beijing government for the latest unrest, saying, “China must stop the long systematic policies of repression right now and withdraw the Chinese immigrants, release the entire political prisoner and let the Uighers express their different views and grievances peacefully.”

The Turkic-speaking Uighers consider Xinjiang their traditional homeland, but large influxes of ethnic Han Chinese migrants over the years have left Uighers a minority. The Uighers also complain they remain economically disadvantaged, even as China overall has enjoyed double-digit growth rates and improved living standards.

(아주경제 앤드류 이 기자)

Park Sae-jin swatchsjp@ajunews.com