LOC09:01
06:01 GMT
(with map and photo)
TOKYO, July 11 (KUNA) -- China raised the death toll from Sunday's riot in
Urumqi, the capital of northwest China's Muslim-majority Xinjiang region to
184, state-run Xinhua News Agency reported Saturday, citing the Xinjiang
regional government.
China previously said at least 156 people died and other 1,080 injured in
the unrest, which was the deadliest riot since communist China was founded in
1949.
It also gave an ethnic breakdown of the dead for the first time after the
deadly violence began in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region on July 5.
According to Xinhua, 137 of those killed were Han Chinese, including 111
men and 26 women, while 46 were Muslim Uygur people, consisting of 45 men and
one woman.
One man of the Hui Muslim ethnic group also died, it said. Uygurs are a
Turkic ethnic group of people mostly living in western China and Central Asia.
Xinjiang, where 8.5 million Uygur Muslims live with their own culture and
language, has been under China's control since 1949. Muslim separatists have
waged a low-level campaign against Chinese rule for decades. The Chinese
government repeatedly says Muslim separatists pose one of the biggest threat
to the country by planning a series of terror attacks. (end)
mk.ema
KUNA 110901 Jul 09NNNN