Chinese police have killed all but one of the 29 suspects in a deadly attack on a coal mine that killed 16 people in the restive region of Xinjiang, an official website reported Friday. The remaining suspect was arrested.
The report in Tianshan Net, a news portal run by Communist Party officials in Xinjiang, was the first official confirmation of the bloody September 18 mine attack, which had been reported in some foreign media but was kept tightly under wraps in China.
China blames the violence in Xinjiang on terrorism, but authorities typically are reluctant to release details and have blocked information on some deadly incidents.
That has drawn criticism that Beijing keeps control of the narrative to serve its agenda in the region, which is rife with ethnic conflict between members of the Muslim Uighur minority and the country’s Han majority.
Tianshan said the assailants went into hiding after they killed 11 civilians and five police officers at the coal mine at a remote location in the Asku region.
The coal mine is controlled by members of China’s Han majority. Radio Free Asia (RFA) — which is funded by the United States (US) government — was the first to report on the mine attack in September.