Urumqi, July 13: Heavy security remained on the streets of China’s Urumqi city and loudspeakers blared calls for national unity, more than a week after ethnic bloodshed claimed over 180 lives.
Some locals had started to repair their shops that were looted in ethnic riots on July 5 when Muslim Uighurs took to the streets in the capital of China’s northwest Xinjiang region.
However hundreds of armed police and their people carriers were still patrolling around Urumqi, and some shops remained shuttered.
The initial unrest saw Uighurs attack Han Chinese and left 184 people dead and 1,680 injured, according to the government, in the worst ethnic violence to hit the country in decades.
Thousands of Han Chinese retaliated early in the week, arming themselves with makeshift weapons and marching through parts of Urumqi vowing vengeance against the Uighurs.
The mobs attacked some Uighurs, AFP witnessed, but it was unclear whether any died at the hands of the vigilantes.
Exiled Uighur leaders insist that security forces and Han mobs killed Uighurs after Sunday’s unrest. The official toll, however, only relates to Sunday’s violence.
On Monday, the strong security presence in Urumqi was reinforced by red banners scattered around the city displaying slogans such as “Long live the unity of the ethnic groups,” or “Down with the separatist threat.”
Trucks with loudspeakers also made their way round the city, blaring out messages urging people to cooperate and maintain social stability.
Communist Party Politburo member Zhou Yongkang called over the weekend for a “steel wall” of security against “hostile forces,” according to the state-run Xinhua news agency.
Many residents were unwilling to talk about the violence that had rocked their city, keen to get on with their lives but on their guard for further violence.
“It’s not good to talk about these things now, it’s very complicated,” said a fearful taxi driver in Urumqi, who would only give his name as Mang.
But in a sign of rising confidence, the streets of Urumqi were beginning to fill up with cars, particularly in the Uighur district in the south where the only traffic over the past few days had involved security vehicles.
–Agencies