Police shot dead four people Sunday in China's far north-west, bringing to 11 the death toll in weekend violence in one of the country's most troubled ethnic regions. The suspects died after more than 10 pedestrians and officers were injured in what the state-run Xinhua News Agency called ``an eruption of violence' Sunday afternoon in Kashgar.
It followed a day of clashes in the same Silk Road city that killed seven people and injured 22. Xinijang region has been on edge since nearly 200 people were killed in fighting between Uighurs and Han Chinese in 2009 in Urumqi, the regional capital.
Xinhua did not give a reason for the latest violence, but Xinjiang has been beset by ethnic conflict and a sometimes-violent separatist movement by Uighurs, a largely Muslim ethnic group that sees Xinjiang as its homeland. Many Uighurs say they have been marginalized as more majority Han Chinese move into the region.
It was unclear who started the clashes in Kashgar. But an overseas ethnic activist group said Sunday it feared the violence could prompt a new crackdown on minority Uighurs blamed for previous violence in the region. A man reached Sunday at a hotel close to a major shopping street in Kashgar said he had heard what he thought were gunshots in the area in the afternoon. The staff member, who would not give his name out of fear of reprisals, said he saw police, fire engines and ambulances, which were carrying at least two injured.