Knife mob kills 33; China blames ethnic separatists
The death toll from a horrific rampage by a knife-wielding mob at a railway station has risen to 33 as China blamed ethnic separatists for the “terrorist attack”.
Police shot four of the assailants who stormed Kunming station in Yunnan province and started slashing people yesterday. One hundred and thirty people were wounded, reports said.
Most of the more-than-10 attackers were dressed in black, according to witnesses.
Student Qiao Yunao was waiting to catch a train when people starting crying and running, and then she saw a man slash another man’s neck.
“I was freaking out and ran to a fast food store, and many people were running in there to take refuge,” she said via Sina Weibo, a Chinese microblog. “I saw two attackers, both men, one with a watermelon knife and the other with a fruit knife. They were running and chopping whoever they could.”
One of the victims, Yang Haifei, said he saw a person “come straight at me with a long knife and I ran away with everyone”. People who were slow to escape ended up severely injured, he told the official Xinhua News Agency.
“They just fell on the ground,” Mr Yang said from hospital, where he was being treated for chest and back wounds.
One suspect was arrested, Xinhua said. Evidence found at the scene of the attack showed that it was “a terrorist attack carried out by Xinjiang separatist forces”, the agency quoted the municipal government as saying. Authorities considered it to be “an organised, premeditated violent terrorist attack”.
The far western region of Xinjiang is home to a simmering rebellion against Chinese rule by separatists among parts of the Muslim Uighur.
Most attacks blamed on Uighur separatists take place in Xinjiang, but yesterday’s assault took place more than 620 miles to the south east in Yunnan, which has not had a history of such unrest.
But a suicide car attack blamed on Uighur separatists that killed five people at Beijing’s Tiananmen Gate last November raised alarms that militants may be aiming to strike at targets throughout the country.
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In an indication of how seriously authorities viewed the attack – one of China’s deadliest in recent years – the country’s top police official, Politburo member Meng Jianzhu, arrived in Kunming today and went straight to the hospital to visit the wounded and their families, Xinhua said.
The violence in Kunming came at a sensitive time as political leaders in Beijing prepare for Wednesday’s opening of the annual meeting of the nominal legislature where the government of President Xi Jinping will deliver its first one-year work report.
Mr Xi called for “all-out efforts” to bring the culprits to justice. The Security Management Bureau, under the Ministry of Public Security, said that police will “crack down the crimes in accordance with the law without any tolerance”.
A Xinhua reporter on the scene in Kunming said several suspects had been “controlled” while police continued their investigation. The reporter said firefighters and emergency medical teams were at the station and rushing injured people to hospitals for treatment.
More than 60 victims of the attack were taken to Kunming No 1 People’s Hospital, where at least a dozen bodies also could be seen, according to Xinhua reporters there.
Xinhua said some victims were migrant workers returning to factories after family reunions over the Chinese New Year.
Footage on China’s state broadcaster CCTV showed a heavy police presence near the station and plainclothed agents wrapping a long knife in a plastic bag as investigators collected evidence following the attacks.
Pictures on Sina Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter, showed bodies covered in blood at the station.
The Kunming railway station, located in the southeastern area of the city, is one of the largest in south-west China.
