ISTANBUL — A decade after deadly riots tore through his hometown, Kamilane Abudushalamu still vividly recalls the violence that left him an exile. On July 5, 2009, Abudushalamu was hiding with his father on the 10th floor of an office tower in Urumqi, the capital of China’s Xinjiang region that is home to the Turkic Uighur ethnic minority. The killed Uighur workers had been on a state employment program, sent more than 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) from home. When newly appointed Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Xinjiang in 2014, bombs tore through an Urumqi train station, killing three and injuring 79. He says he has now heard of more than 50 family members that have been detained in Xinjiang.

Source: Philippine Daily Inquirer July 06, 2019 00:00 UTC