China
was reeling from what was described as a "violent terror attack" on
Saturday in which a knife-wielding gang stabbed 33 people to death and
left scores more injured at a railway station.
State media blamed
the killings at Kunming in Yunnan province, south-west China, on
militants from Xinjiang in the country's restive north-west. "Evidence
at the crime scene showed that the Kunming railway station terrorist
attack was carried out by Xinjiang separatist forces," the Xinhua news
agency said, quoting officials in the city.
Reports said five
attackers were shot dead by police following the incident on Saturday
evening and another five were being hunted. Unverified photographs
circulating on social media appeared to show the blood-soaked bodies of
victims lined up on the floor. Other images showed distraught people
running away from the station and crowds gathering among police officers
and ambulances.
Chinese President Xi Jinping ordered a full-scale
manhunt to find those responsible for what was one of the deadliest
attacks in the communist country in recent years.
"Severely punish
in accordance with the law the violent terrorists and resolutely crack
down on those who have been swollen with arrogance," he said, according
to Xinhua. "Understand the serious and complex nation of combating
terrorism. Go all out to maintain social stability."
Chinese TV said the country's top police official, Meng Jianzhu, was on his way to the scene.
Yang
Haifei, who was wounded in the chest and back, told Xinhua he had been
buying a train ticket when the attackers approached and he had tried to
escape with the crowd. "I saw a person come straight at me with a long
knife and I ran away with everyone," he said. Others "simply fell on the
ground".
Some who escaped were desperately searching for missing
family. "I can't find my husband, and his phone went unanswered," said
Yang Ziqing, who had been waiting to catch a train to Shanghai when the
knife gang struck.
Eyewitnesses were quoted by the China News
Service, saying the attackers, dressed in black, "burst into the train
station plaza and the ticket hall, stabbing whoever they saw".
Xinhua
said at least 113 people were injured in the "organised, premeditated"
attack. The victims were taken by ambulances to hospitals around the
city.
Weibo users took to the social network to explain what
happened, though many of those posts were quickly deleted by government
censors, especially those that described the attackers, two of whom were
identified by some as women. Others condemned the attack.
"No
matter who, for whatever reason, or of what race, chose somewhere so
crowded as a train station, and made innocent people their target – they
are evil and they should go to hell," wrote one user.
The website of the state-run People's Daily
newspaper said the gang struck at 9pm local time on Saturday, hacking
into victims who it said were "passersby". It said the station had been
cordoned off and more than 120 police, firefighters and security
officers deployed to the scene. TV images showed police wrapping a long,
sword-like knife in a plastic bag, amid the heavy security at the
station.
Kunming, about 1,300 miles south-west of Beijing, is a
bustling university town and major commercial hub on trade routes
linking southern China to neighbouring Vietnam.
The attack comes
at a particularly sensitive time as China gears up for the annual
meeting of parliament, which opens in Beijing on Wednesday and is
normally accompanied by a tightening of security across the country.
China has blamed similar incidents in the past on extremists operating
out of Xinjiang, though such attacks have generally been limited to
Xinjiang itself. China says its first major suicide attack, in Beijing's
Tiananmen Square in October, involved militants from Xinjiang, home to
the Muslim Uighur people, many of whom resent Chinese restrictions on
their culture and religion.
In July 2008, the city was hit by two
explosions on board separate public transport buses, leaving two dead.
Officials did not classify the blasts as acts of terrorism and later
dismissed reports that they were claimed by a Xinjiang separatist group.
One of the terrorist killed by police pictured above
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