Chinese Muslims armed with knives slipped in to a coal mine town in a remote far western region of China at night, caught off guard security forces and sleeping workers, and killed five police officers, murdered 50 miners as they slept in their beds, and wounded dozens more according reports.
The majority of victims of this brutal attack by the Chinese Muslim Uighurs (Uyghur) sect were Han, a Chinese ethnic group who were lured to this isolated corner of the far western Xinjiang region of China by the hopes of steady work and more money.
Details of this September 18 brutal attack was reported by the coal mine camp’s residents and victims’ relatives and published by Radio Free Asia, a US sponsored news service.
Wanted posters were posted in the city of Baicheng suggesting the attackers were ethnic Uigher Muslims, all of whom apparently escaped in to the foothills of the Tianshan Mountains. While Baicheng is conducting a huge manhunt, Chinese news media has not reported this massacre, and local officials, when asked about it, have denied that it even took place.
China has long vowed to crack down on the “three evils” of terrorism, separatism, and religious extremism in Xinjiang province.
(h/t RFA)
