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VIDEO:
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2009/jul/06/china-urumqi-riots

“Ehnic violence erupts in western China”

SNIPPET: “Chinese TV footage of a Muslim Uighur protest that turned deadly in Urumqi, Xinjiang province. At least 140 people died. The Guardian’s Tania Branigan reports as the only western journalist on the scene”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jul/06/china-uighur-urumqi-riots

ARTICLE SNIPPET: “More than two-thirds of the patients were male and the vast majority, 233, were Han. But 39 were Uighur, 15 Hui – another Muslim minority – and four came from other ethnic groups.

“I left my office and took the 63 bus home, but a gang of people stopped it and beat us – they cut me; there were three knives so my arm was cut in three places,” said one victim, Liu Hongtao.

On the streets closer to the heart of the violence, red-eyed workers loaded sooty trays of cola bottles onto a trolley at Liu Jie’s store, trying to salvage what little remained after the mob smashed its windows and torched the building.

Liu’s hands were black and her clothing reeked of smoke. Her eyes filled with tears as she described how five attacks came within a few hours, from around 6pm.

“It was getting worse by 7pm and I told my workers to go home. When people broke the windows I fled myself. They were using big rocks,” she said.

“They beat and killed Han people in the street. I was hiding in the courtyard behind the shop and they tried to break the gate, then the second group came. We were attacked five times, the last time at about 11pm and they set [the shop] on fire. We hid in the backyard until the armed police and fire service came to help. There were people killed on the street, they were chased, beaten and knifed. Physically I was not hurt but mentally I was seriously attacked.””