An attack on a farmers’ market in the western Chinese region of Xinjiang has reportedly left at least 22 people dead and dozens injured, Radio Free Asia, the news service financed by the US government, has reported.
Radio Free Asia on Saturday reported that the rampage, which took place on Oct. 12 in Kashgar Prefecture, was carried out by four men armed with knives and explosives who attacked police officers and merchants before the men were shot dead by the police. Most of the victims were ethnic Han Chinese and the assailants were ethnic Uighur, the news service said, citing local police officials.
One officer, Hashim Eli, said the assailants were local men who arrived on motorcycles at 10:30am.
“Two of them attacked police officers patrolling the street, while the other two attacked the Han Chinese stall owners who were just entering the market to open their stores,” Radio Free Asia quoted him as saying.
A man who answered the phone at the police station in Bachu County, where the attack took place, declined to comment, saying he was not authorized to speak to reporters.
As of Sunday, news of the attack had not appeared in the Chinese media, which frequently delays reporting about unrest in the region for reasons that are not entirely clear. The authorities make it difficult for foreign journalists to travel to the string of towns and cities in southern Xinjiang, where much of the recent bloodshed has occurred.
Violence has been mounting in the region in recent months, despite a crackdown on what the authorities describe as Islamic-inspired terrorism.
Human rights advocates say harsh security measures and tightened restrictions on religious practices are aggravating discontent among Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking minority who complain of job discrimination and Han migration to the region, which many see as an effort to dilute their ethnic identity.
It was not immediately clear what prompted the attack on the farmers market in Bachu County, but it appears to follow the pattern of recent attacks in which Uighur assailants, often using crude weapons, target Han civilians, as well as Uighur police officers and government officials.
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