URUMQI, China — It was about 8 p.m. when the mob descended on Zhongwan Road. The police didn’t arrive until six hours later.
In the time between, most residents locked their doors and hid, peering out through windows and listening from basements as ethnic violence raged in China’s western Xinjiang province.
Ethnic minority Uighur rioters had burned down the local grocery store, owned by a majority Han Chinese family — one of many stores attacked across the regional capital, Urumqi. Four family members were killed, and a fifth woman was still missing.
On Saturday, the rest of the family was grimly sifting through the store’s rubble, still looking for her body.
Nearly a week after western Xinjiang province was rocked by China’s worst ethnic violence in decades, residents of Zhongwan Road, both Han and Uighur, were still putting together the snippets of what they saw and heard. Many others are searching for answers about what really happened.
China’s government released a breakdown Saturday of the riots’ death toll, saying most of the 184 killed were from the Han Chinese majority. But many Uighurs disputed the new figures, citing rumors that security forces fired on Uighurs during the July 5 protest and in following days during a police crackdown and retaliation by Han mobs.
China’s government blames Rebiya Kadeer, a 62-year-old Uighur businesswoman and activist who lives in exile in the U.S., for instigating the riots with anti-Beijing propaganda. She has denied any involvement and condemned the violence.
Many Uighurs in Urumqi said that the fighting was the result of pent-up frustrations about longstanding discrimination and government efforts to subvert their religion and culture — though the government says Uighurs have benefited from Xinjiang’s rapid economic development.
“We don’t really know Rebiya that well. We don’t listen to her or follow her on the Internet,” said one Uighur woman, who identified herself only as Parizat. “We don’t need Rebiya to tell us what to be angry about. We live here. We know what’s wrong.”
