Ethnic riots in China leave 156 people dead

VIOLENT street battles killed at least 156 people and injured 828 others in the deadliest ethnic unrest to hit China’s western Xinjiang region in decades, and officials said yesterday the death toll was expected to rise.

Police sealed off streets in parts of the provincial capital, Urumqi, after anger between ethnic Muslim Uighur people and China’s Han majority erupted into riots. They were seen to be the most serious clashes between the authorities and demonstrators in China since Tiananmen Square in 1989.

And witnesses reported a new protest yesterday in a second city, Kashgar.