Published: December 16, 2013
HONG KONG — At least 16 people were killed late Sunday in Xinjiang, the ethnically tense region of far western China, when the police clashed with attackers who used explosives and knives, according to the region’s news service.
A brief report from the Tianshan news service on Monday did not give details of the attack, but it appeared to be the latest spasm of ethnic violence in the region. The report said the bloodshed occurred late at night in Shufu County near Kashgar, a part of Xinjiang plagued by tensions between Muslim Uighurs and the government authorities.
The police in Shufu County were trying to catch a criminal suspect when they were attacked by a group of “rioters” with explosives and knives, the report said. Two police officers died, while the police fatally shot 14 attackers and captured two others, according to the report. Investigations into the events were underway, it said.
Repeated calls to government and police offices in the town where the bloodshed occurred brought no response; calls were not answered, or officials promptly hung up. A spokeswoman for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Hua Chunying, told reporters at a daily briefing in Beijing that the attack was the work of a “terror gang,” but she gave no details about its motives or ethnic composition.
Uighurs are a Turkic-speaking people who form a minority in Xinjiang as a whole — about 46 percent of the 21.8 million long-term residents, according to recent data. Many Uighurs resent the growing presence of Han Chinese in what they consider their historic homeland, and complain that the best jobs and business opportunities go to Han migrants.
Around Kashgar, in the southwest corner of the region, Uighurs make up about 91 percent of the residents; many of them are pious Muslims. The area has experienced outbursts of violence aimed at police stations and other sites of Chinese authority.
Tensions in Xinjiang have deepened in recent years, especially after July 2009, when at least 200 people died in Urumqi, the regional capital, when Uighur men attacked Han Chinese people. Han Chinese crowds then retaliated by rioting in Uighur neighborhoods.
Xinjiang shares borders with Central Asian countries and Pakistan, and the Chinese government has often blamed militant separatist groups supported from abroad for the unrest in Xinjiang. But many international human rights groups and supporters of Uighur self-determination say the violence is often a homegrown expression of discontent.
In June, 35 people, including 11 rioters, died when Chinese security forces opened fire on a crowd of Uighurs who had attacked police and government buildings in Turpan in central Xinjiang, according to China’s state-run news agency, Xinhua.
In October, five people were killed in central Beijing when a vehicle veered onto a crowded sidewalk and burst into flames at the main entrance to the Forbidden City. The Chinese government blamed Uighur separatists for the attack.
A version of this article appears in print on December 17, 2013, on page A12 of the New York edition with the headline: China: Deadly Clash Erupts in Far West.
