beyondBeijing2008.com

URUMQI, Xinjiang – As we drove through the empty streets of Urumqi, I was immediately reminded of the unrest in the Tibetan capital Lhasa last year – but with one key difference.

Here, in the remote capital of China’s northwestern Xinjiang province, there were few pedestrians, truckloads of armed police, smashed windows, and lots of scared people – just like in Lhasa in March 2008 when 22 people were killed, according to official numbers.

In Urumqi, officials have said that 156 people were killed and more than 1,100 injured as a result of the violent ethnic riots between the Uighurs and Han Chinese on Sunday.

But what separates Urumqi from Lhasa is the deep sense of hate between this region’s two majority ethnic groups: the Turkic-speaking Muslim Uighurs and the Han Chinese, the dominant ethnic group in China as a whole.

“I’d like to kill some Uighurs too! They’ve killed so many innocent Hans!” said one Han passerby when were filming in a downtown street.

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