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China Riot in Urumqi: death toll from Xinjiang unrest rises

More than 100 people have been killed and 800 injured in a riot which broke out in the ethnically sensitive far-Western Chinese province of Xinjiang.

The death-toll, which stands at 129, marks a major escalation in the casualty figures from the disturbance which broke out on Sunday night after police tried to disperse a demonstration by members of the Uighur Muslim minority in the provincial capital, Urumqi.

Initial reports said that just three people had been killed in running battles with police that left burned-out cars and buses and several smashed shop-fronts.

Xinhua, the state-operated news service, did not provide any further details as to the composition of the casualty-list between the Uighur minority and ethnic Han Chinese.

Hundreds of arrests had been made, including 10 "key figures" it said were involved in the unrest, while authorities were now looking for 90 others responsible for "fanning" the protests, the agency added.

Authorities said all traffic was cleared from the streets on Monday morning to retain order. Another witness said the city of 2.3 million which is 2,000 miles west Beijing residents was now effectively "on lockdown".

The disturbances come after a year of rising tensions between the dominant Han Chinese authorities and the Uighur ethnic minority - the historical ethnic majority in Xinjiang - who say they have been socially and economically marginalised by Beijing's development policies.

Officials said the riot began when Chinese police tried to break up a sit-in protest calling for an investigation into the deaths of two Uighurs during a fight between Uighur and Han workers at a toy factory in Guangdong province, Southern China last month.

The riot has echoes of clashes last March in the neighbouring province of Tibet where there are similar simmering ethnic tensions between the historic Buddhist population and Han Chinese who have migrated to the region in recent decades.

The Chinese government accused the exiled groups including the World Uighur Congress, of fomenting the violence, a claim which was adamantly denied.

"The violence is a pre-empted, organized violent crime. It is instigated and directed from abroad and carried out by outlaws in the country," said a statement carried by Xinhua.

However Dilxat Raxit, a spokesman for the World Uighur Congress in exile in Sweden, blamed police heavy-handedness for the riot, saying the protests were peaceful until the authorities began to forcibly remove protestors from the city's main square.

"This anger has been growing for a long time. It began as a peaceful assembly. There were thousands of people shouting to stop ethnic discrimination, demanding an explanation ... They are tired of suffering in silence."

Adam Grode, an American Fulbright scholar studying in Urumqi, told the Associated Press that he heard explosions and also saw a few people being carried off on stretchers and a Han Chinese man with blood on his shirt entering a hospital.

He said police used tear gas, fire hoses and batons to suppress the riot as protesters knocked over police barriers and smashed bus windows.

"Every time the police showed some force, the people would jump the barriers and get back on the street. It was like a cat-and-mouse sort of game," added Mr Grode, 26.

Alim Seytoff, general secretary of the Uyghur American Association, based in Washington D.C., said police and officials were going through university dormitory rooms looking for students involved in the protest that gave way to the riot.

"Urumqi is a tightly controlled city, but the students have access to all sorts of information on the Internet," he said, "There will be a harsh crackdown, but the basic problems won't disappear."

This year marks the 60th anniversary of Chinese troops entering Xinjiang, an act which Beijing describes as a "peaceful liberation" that brought development and economic benefits to the historically poor region which is China's gateway to Central Asia.

Uighur groups however say they have been systematically edged out of society by the influx of Han Chinese that have moved into the region to exploit Xinjiang's oil, natural gas and agricultural resources as part of Beijing's "develop the West" policy.

Last year on the eve of the Beijing Olympics Uighur separatist groups attacked a Chinese police post killing 17 police, according to figures released by state media. Two men were executed for the attacks in the Silk Road city of Kashgar last April.

Beijing said that Uighur separatist groups were running terrorist cells in Xinjiang which have received training from Islamist militant groups in neighbouring Pakistan.

The Uighur issue returned to top of US-China relations last month after Washington refused to send four Uighur men released from the Guantanamo Bay prison camp back to China.

Despite Beijing's objections the men were relocated to Bermuda as U.S. officials have said they feared the men would be executed if they were returned to China. Officials are trying to transfer 13 other released Uighurs to the Pacific nation of Palau.