05 July 2009 - 16H41

Violence erupts in China's Xinjiang region: reports

Police rushed Sunday to restore order in the northwestern Chinese city of Urumqi where an unknown number of people attacked passers-by and torched vehicles, state media reported.

The state news agency Xinhua said the violence erupted Sunday afternoon in the capital of the restive Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region.

Xinjiang is home to about eight million Uighurs, a Turkic ethnic group, and many members of the mainly Muslim community say they have suffered political and religious persecution for decades.

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