Attack in Xinjiang Region of China: More Than 15 people Dead
According to the official news agency Xinhua, the incident took place on Friday in Shache county, which is located in Xinjiang region. The state news agency said that the attackers drove their vehicles to the street known as "the food street", where people shop at food stores and street vendors. They started throwing explosives into the street and stabbed people with knives they were carrying, The New York Times reported.
Eleven assailants were shot to death by the police officers who were patrolling the area when the attack happened. The police injured four other attackers. Fourteen civilians were also wounded in the attack. Police also found hatchets, broadswords and detonation devices at the crime scene, according to the Xinhua.
Such attacks aren't new to the highly volatile western region of the country. Xinhua reported that in the past six months, such violent incidents left at least 175 people dead in a total of eight attacks. Although the news agency did not disclose any information on the possible motives behind the attack and didn't make any remarks about the ethnicity of the perpetrators, many believe that the assailants are of the ethnic Uighur minority.
The Xinjiang region of China is an autonomous region where the majority of the local population was overwhelmingly ethnic Uighur. Uighurs are a Turkic ethnic group and the majority of them are followers of Islam.
In recent years, the tension between the Uighur and Han (the majority of Chinese population) ethnic groups has been increasing greatly. The Uighurs say that the Chinese government is suppressing their ethnic identity and oppressing their religious freedom. They also say they ar victim to the forced evictions by Chinese authorities to make "room" for the influx of Han people settling in Xinjiang, which was until recent years overwhelmingly an Uighur region. Many believe that Chinese authorities are deliberately relocating Han people to manipulate the ethnic makeup of the region.
