The leader of Uighur exiles from China said Wednesday that based on eyewitness reports by phone, the Uighur death toll in clashes in Xinjiang was up to 800. Dolkun Isa, general secretary of the World Uighur Congress (WUC), said many had been lynched by Han Chinese mobs.
He added an exact toll was difficult to confirm, but telephone accounts of fatal clashes indicated "between 600 and 800" Uighurs were killed. "We can say for certain it was several hundred," Isa said.
The Chinese government said clashes Sunday and Monday in Urumqi between Uighur protestors and riot police as well as attacks on civilians, left at least 156 people dead and 1,080 injured.
Isa said four women students had been killed and their heads cut off when a mob invaded Urumqi University's medical school, while 150 had been killed at the city tractor factory.
"We have been hearing that bodies are lying in the streets in Urumqi," said another WUC official, vice president Asgar Can. The WUC's German office is in Munich.
Can appealed to Berlin to let into Germany 13 Uighur men still detained at the US detention camp at Guantanamo Bay. He said they could live in Munich, which has Europe's biggest Uighur community, and would integrate well.
Source: Agencies
Kavkaz Center
print version
