Dozens of people were killed after an armed gang attacked civilians, police officers, and government workers in the Xinjiang region of western China on Monday.
Armed with knives, the gang attacked a police station and government office in Elixku, before attacking civilians and rioting in the nearby town of Huangdi.
Dozens of Uighur and Han civilians were killed or injured by the gang, according to the Xinhua news agency.
The police reportedly shot and killed “dozens” of members of the mob, which they described as Islamic terrorists.
State media have called the incident a “premeditated terror attack”, but with China tightly controlling social media and journalists’ access to the region, the reason for the attack is impossible to verify.
The violent attack comes after Chinese authorities executed 13 people and sentenced three others to death on 17 July for their role in a rail station bombing in May, which left hundreds injured.
“Xinhua news agency tends to report only a sequence or version of events sanctioned by the central government in Beijing.
“It’s not clear why state media took more than 24 hours to report the attack.”
Xinjiang has seen violent attacks over the last few years, which the China government blames on Islamist militants and separatists who it says are trying to establish an independent state called East Turkestan.
In May, an attack on a market in Urumqi, capital of Xinjiang, left 39 people dead and another 29 were killed by a gang armed with knives at a train station in Kunming in March.
Exiled Uighur groups have claimed repressive policies set by the government – including controls on Islam – have sparked unrest.
More than 200 people have died in the unrest in the last year.
