The deserted streets and shuttered shops in the usually bustling Chinese areas of Kashgar city on Wednesday stand as testament to the splintered ethnic lines in the western region of Xinjiang. Days after Uighur assailants stormed a restaurant, killed the owner and a waiter, then hacked four people to death on a nearby street over the weekend, Han Chinese residents — the country’s predominant ethnic group but a minority in Kashgar — remained on edge.
The attacks were the latest burst of violence to jolt Xinjiang, where many Uighurs, a mostly Muslim Turkic-speaking people from the region, resent the influx of Han Chinese. “People here feel genuine terror, we definitely feel unsafe here,” said a 21-year-old man surnamed Huo from China’s southwestern Sichuan province. “That scene was just too cruel. There were corpses, blood everywhere. No one dares to come out on the streets.”
About 200 enraged Chinese residents protested two nights ago, angered that “innocent lives were taken,” Huo said. A 43-year-old businessman surnamed Wang who has been living in Kashgar for more than a decade, said he might leave next year, adding that “there’s just been too many incidents.” The roads are now occupied by troops at security checkpoints and paramilitary officers are carrying batons and rifles as they walk the streets. Stores have kept their doors shut for days.
“In the past, we used to get along, but now I distrust them,” said a Kashgar Chinese shopkeeper, who declined to be named, referring to the Uighurs and Han Chinese. “The violent attacks targeted one whole race — the Han Chinese. How am I supposed to trust them now?”
