Death toll rises as fresh unrest erupts in Urumqi
Riots in Xinjiang have left 156 people dead and more than 800 injured
(URUMQI) Chinese police have arrested more than 1,400 people following rioting in the capital of Muslim Xinjiang region which left 156 people dead and more than 800 injured, state media said on Tuesday.
 | | Angry mob: Thousands of Han Chinese protesters armed with makeshift weapons marched through the city yesterday vowing revenge after the riots on Sunday |
While there were some reports that the violence had spread elsewhere in the region, Xinjiang's Communist Party boss said the unrest had been quelled, although he warned 'this struggle is far from over'.
Thousands of Han Chinese protesters armed with makeshift weapons marched through China's Urumqi city yesterday vowing revenge after ethnic unrest claimed 156 lives, an AFP reporter witnessed.
The crowd, estimated by the AFP journalist to be at least 10,000-strong, converged on central Urumqi with many carrying poles, chains, machetes and bats.
Police fired tear gas repeatedly at the protesters but they refused to disperse, according to the reporter.
Police were blocking them from getting through to an area of Urumqi populated by Muslim Uighurs, who authorities have blamed for riots on Sunday that left 156 people dead and more than 1,000 injured.
'The Uighurs came to our area to smash things, now we are going to their area to beat them,' one protester, who was carrying a metal pipe, told AFP.
Xinjiang's state-run media quoted the regional Communist Party boss Wang Lequan as calling for officials to launch 'a struggle against separatism'.
Some Xinjiang newspapers also carried graphic pictures of the violence, including corpses, at least one of which showed a woman whose throat had been slashed.
A total of 1,434 people had been detained, state news agency Xinhua reported, although local residents told Reuters that police were making indiscriminate sweeps of Uighur areas.
Despite heightened security, some unrest appeared to be spreading in the volatile region, where long-standing ethnic tensions periodically erupt into bloodshed.
Chinese officials have already blamed the unrest on separatist groups abroad, who it says want to create an independent homeland for the Muslim Uighur minority.
Exiled Uighur businesswoman and activist Rebiya Kadeer, blamed by Chinese state media for being behind the violence, denied having anything to do with it.
'These accusations are completely false,' Ms Kadeer said through an interpreter in Washington, where she now lives.
In Washington, the White House said it was concerned about the deaths but it would be premature to speculate on the circumstances.
Han Chinese residents said the death toll was likely to rise. 'Chaos was seen in a number of places in Urumqi yesterday afternoon,' the official Xinhua news agency reported.
The Xinjiang region has long experienced simmering ethnic tensions, with the eight million Uighurs complaining about the influx of Han Chinese into what they regard as their homeland, as well as political and cultural repression. -- Reuters, AFP
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Han PRCs Diu Back Uigurs. Death Toll to RISE!
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