Several killed in ethnic clashes in Henan

Beijing (AsiaNews/Agencies) – Thousands of police on Monday were guarding a country road outside a village in central China where eyewitnesses said rioting between hundreds of members of the Han ethnic majority and Hui Muslims killed at least seven people. Local sources said that the authorities have imposed the martial law.

According to a report in The New York Times, which could not be immediately confirmed, as many as 148 died in the clashes, including 18 police officers dispatched to put down the unrest.

The NYT earlier reported that the trouble started on Friday at Nanren village, near the southern bank of the Yellow River, after a Hui taxi driver's car hit and killed a 6-year-old Han girl. Several houses were burned down and a brick factory was destroyed, as the rival groups fought each other with sticks. China's official media has not reported the trouble, but villagers contacted said hundreds of riot police have been drafted into the area and a news blackout imposed.

"People were so afraid," one witness told. "No-one dared to go to work or go outside. Even the transport has been stopped."

Correspondents say clashes between the Han, who make up the vast majority of China's population, and the 8.5m-strong Hui minority are not common. China's Huis are descendants of Arab and Persian traders who have over the centuries mixed so thoroughly with the Han Chinese that they are virtually indistinguishable from each other apart from different customs and dress codes.

But tensions may have been exacerbated by China's economic success, which has seen a growing gap between rich and poor. And there has been a general increase in unrest in rural areas fuelled by dissatisfaction over poverty and corruption, correspondents say.

• china
• henan
• islam
• violence
• martial
• law
• fight
• civil
• human
• right
• minority
• totalitarism
• dictatorship