Weekend of violence in china's Xinjiang leaves 14 dead
At midnight on Saturday in China's heavily guarded far west, two men stabbed a driver, mowed his blue truck into pedestrians and hacked the crowd until at least six were dead and 28 injured. Reshma Patil reports.
At midnight on Saturday in China's heavily guarded far west, two men stabbed a driver, mowed his blue truck into pedestrians and hacked the crowd until at least six were dead and 28 injured. On Sunday, police shot four dead after a blast and another bout of violence in the Silk Road town of Kashgar in Xinjiang.
This is the official version of blasts and street attacks in Kashgar that left at least 14 people, including a policeman, dead on the weekend, raising concerns whether violence is returning to China's vast northwest frontier province bordering Central Asia.
Authorities did not explain whether the violence was an ethnic riot or separatist strike by extremists seeking an East Turkestan state. In 2008, Beijing blamed Uighurs 'terrorists' for ploughing a truck into border police in Xinjiang.
The second burst of violence this month began with two 'blasts' heard in Kashgar on Saturday, said China's news agency Xinhua. On Sunday, there was another blast and street skirmish in Kashgar, which left at least three dead and 10 injured. Police reportedly shot dead four suspects and arrested four.
The attacks came barely a fortnight after police gunned down 14 rioters for attacking a police station in Hotan in Xinjiang.