Kunming Knife Attack: Xinjiang Separatists Blamed for ‘Chinese 9/11’
Photo Credit: APChina’s president, Xi Jinping, has called for “all-out efforts” to bring to justice the black-clad assailants who killed 29 people with knives and machetes in a bloody terrorist attack in the south-western city of Kunming on Saturday night.
Officials blamed Xinjiang separatists for the frenzied violence at a crowded train station. Witnesses described fleeing in fear as the assailants hacked at people apparently at random. Graphic photographs of the aftermath showed bodies lying in pools of blood.
One of the 130 survivors injured in the incident described fleeing in terror as a man lashed out with a long knife, nicking his scalp. “I was terrified … they attacked us like crazy swordsmen, and mostly they went for the head and the shoulders, those parts of the body to kill,” 20-year-old student Wu Yuheng told Reuters as he lay on a bed in a corridor of the Kunming Number One People’s hospital.
Xi urged security officials to “severely punish in accordance with the law the violent terrorists and resolutely crack down on those who have been swollen with arrogance,” state news agency Xinhua said. He added: “Understand the serious and complex nature of combating terrorism … Go all out to maintain social stability.”
It is the first time people from the north-western region have been accused of such a major and organised attack outside its borders, despite rising unrest there in recent years. Many of its Uighur ethnic group, who are Muslim and Turkic-speaking, chafe at Chinese policies and a smaller number want an independent state.
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