Thousands flee China’s ethnic unrest

THOUSANDS of people poured into bus and train stations to leave Urumqi city yesterday after deadly ethnic unrest, as many mosques were ordered shut for the main Muslim day of prayer.

Authorities said they had put on extra bus services out of the capital of China’s remote Xinjiang region, but demand outstripped seats and scalpers were charging up to five times the normal face price for tickets.

“It is just too risky to stay here. We are scared of the violence,” said Xu Qiugen, 23, a construction worker from central China who had been living in Urumqi for five years. He had bought a bus ticket out with his wife.

Unrest began on Sunday when ethnic Uighurs, who have long complained about repression under Chinese rule, took to the streets in their thousands to protest, and security forces moved in to clamp down.

The Chinese government said 156 people were killed and more than 1,000 others injured as Uighurs attacked people from China’s dominant Han ethnic group.

But Uighur exiles said security forces overreacted to peaceful protests and used deadly force. They said hundreds of people may have died in the unrest, including in the security crackdown.

The tensions continued early in the week as thousands of Han Chinese took to the streets wielding knives, poles, meat cleavers and other makeshift weapons vowing vengeance against the Muslim Uighurs.

With ethnic tensions still at flash-point and security forces saturating the city, many mosques were ordered shut for weekly prayers.

“The government said there would be no Friday prayers,” said Tursun, a Uighur man, outside the Hantagri mosque, one of the oldest in the capital, as about 100 policemen carrying machine guns and batons stood guard nearby.

“There’s nothing we can do... the government is afraid that people will use religion to support the three forces.”

He was referring to a Chinese government term referring to extremism, separatism and terrorism — forces it says are seeking to split Xinjiang from the rest of the country.

Xinjiang makes up one-sixth of China’s territory and it crosses into Central Asia, sharing borders with eight countries including Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Eight million Uighurs make up just under half of Xinjiang’s population. They are a Turkic-speaking people who share more links with their Central Asian neighbours than the Han Chinese.

Heavy security was also in force throughout the historic Xinjiang city of Kashgar, about 1,000 kilometres from Urumqi, where smaller-scale ethnic unrest flared last year.

However, foreign reporters were ordered out of the city, preventing them from assessing the situation after an exiled Uighur leader said this week that Chinese security forces may have killed 100 people there.

“All foreign journalists should leave for their own safety,” said Chen Li, a press official with the Kashgar government.

At Urumqi’s Bayi bus station, mainly a hub for travel to other parts of China rather than within Xinjiang, around 10,000 people were trying to leave the city, double the normal number.

An official said the numbers were inflated because students were also leaving for the summer holidays, but that others were fleeing because of the unrest.

Queues at the bus station had as many as 300 people in them yesterday morning, with many of them Han but also some Uighurs.

Scalpers moved fast to take advantage of the extra demand.