Harmincegyen meghaltak az utóbbi évek legsúlyosabb támadása során Xinjiang fővárosában Uruqiben

2014. május 22./RFA/TibetPress

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Thirty-one people were killed and more than 90 injured in the capital of China's Xinjiang region on Thursday when unidentified attackers plowed two motor vehicles into an open market and set off explosives in the deadliest violence in the troubled region in years, according to reports.

One of the sports utility vehicles (SUVs) exploded in the early morning attack at the crowded market near Renmin Park in downtown Urumqi with eyewitness hearing up to a dozen blasts in all, said the reports by the official Xinhua news agency and the regional government.

The Xinjiang regional government's web portal Tianshan described the attack as a "severe, violent terrorist incident" while Xinhua quoted President Xi Jinping as vowing to severely punish the "terrorists" responsible for it and calling for stepped up patrols and security control over potential "terrorist" targets to prevent "ripple effects."

Tianshan said "thugs broke through protective metal barrier by driving two vehicles, colliding with the crowd and detonating explosive devices, causing the deaths of 31 people and injuring 94."

The death toll in Thursday's attack is believed to be the highest in Xinjiang violence since bloody riots in Urumqi in 2009 between Uyghurs and Han Chinese left almost 200 people dead.

Photos posted by netizens on Sina Weibo, a Chinese equivalent of Twitter, showed bloodied victims lying on the roadside, flames raging and smoke billowing over the market stalls in the background and riot police trying to bring order at the chaotic scene.

'Smell of gunpowder'
Bodies were seen lying amid the fire. Market produce and debris were scattered across the street.

"The air was full of the smell of gunpowder and the sound of sobbing," one witness told Reuters news agency, describing the the aftermath of the blasts on his way to work. "There were simply too many (casualties), old folks who were at the morning market."

A witness told Xinhua he heard a dozen "big" explosions during the attack at about 7:50 a.m.

Xinhua said a "working group" led by Minister of Public Security Guo Shengkun has left for the region "to supervise the investigation and handle the aftermath."

"So far all injured people have been sent to hospitals and police are pushing through the investigation," it said.

Chinese authorities have blamed a series of recent attacks in Xinjiang, the traditional home of the mostly Muslim ethnic minority Uyghurs, on separatist groups.

Beijing's 'repressive' policies
The exiled World Uyghur Congress (WUC) said in an emailed statement that the Urumqi attack stemmed from Beijing's policies in the region.

The group called on the authorities not to use the violence to expand "repressive policies" which it said must be reviewed "to ease a deteriorating situation."

The WUC and other Uyghur rights groups accuse the Chinese authorities of heavy-handed rule in Xinjiang, including curbs on Islamic practices and the culture and language of the Uyghur people.

On April 30, as President Xi was wrapping up a visit to Xinjiang, assailants armed with knives and explosives carried out an attack at a railway station in Urumqi, killing one person and injuring 79. Two attackers also died.

In March, a group of attackers went on a stabbing spree at a railway station in Kunming in southwestern China, killing 29 people and wounding 143 in an incident dubbed "China's 9/11" by state media. Four of the assailants were shot dead by police.

Condolences
The United States offered condolences to victims of the "violent attack," according to a posting on the U.S. embassy's Chinese-language microblog account, stopping short of labeling it terrorism.

Recent attacks in Xinjiang have shown the assailants' "technical and organizational skills are increasing", Shan Wei, a political scientist at the National University of Singapore's East Asian Institute told Agence France-Presse.

"They can choose the site and timing of attacks, and the challenge to the Chinese government is increasing very fast," he added. "Every time its response is to crack down."

Thursday's blasts came a day after state media reported that courts in Xinjiang jailed 39 people for up to 15 year for offences including spreading "terrorist videos".

"Quite a number of these attacks have no relation to separatist movements, it's venting frustration at the Chinese government... including restrictions on religion," Willy Lam, a China analyst at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, told AFP.

"We have reached a vicious cycle because there is no dialogue between Uyghurs and Beijing authorities," he added.

Reported by RFA's Uyghur, Mandarin and Cantonese Services. Written in English by Parameswaran Ponnudurai and Luisetta Mudie