Two Uygur stowaways from China's restive Xinjiang region were shot and killed by police in the country's southern Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, near the Vietnam border, when they attacked the officials with knives.
Police found a group of Uygur stowaways in Guangxi's Pingxiang city reportedly trying to sneak out of China last night, but they allegedly resisted arrest and attacked the officials with knives, state-run China Daily reported today.
Two of the stowaways were shot dead by the police and one was still on the run, police said. A manhunt has been launched to nab the absconding person.
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Some Uygurs from the volatile Xinjiang region have tried to travel to Syria, Iraq and Pakistan to join Islamist groups.
Earlier 21 people, including 10 Turks, were arrested for helping radical Uygurs from Xinjiang to travel to these countries.
Nine of them, allegedly militants, were intercepted while trying to leave China illegally through the Shanghai Pudong Airport in November last year.
Uygurs, who number around 11 million in Xinjiang, are a Turkic-speaking and mostly Muslim ethnic minority.
They have long expressed resentment over Chinese control and settlement of Han people in the restive region that borders Afghanistan and the Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.
Xinjiang has often experienced terror attacks staged by alQaeda-backed East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) which also has bases in Pakistan's volatile tribal areas.
On January 12, six militants stated to be suicide bombers were killed by Chinese police in Xinjiang's Shule County.
Two days before that, the local legislature in Xinjiang endorsed a ban on burqas in public places in the regional capital Urumqi, stating it is not the traditional dress of Uygur women.
ETIM became active in the region in recent years following increased violence because of clashes among Uygurs and Hans.
China's Ministry of Public Security said it waged a special campaign to crackdown on organised human smuggling in April last year in the country's southwestern border regions.
Police have since solved 262 human trafficking cases, arresting 352 suspects who allegedly organised such activities and 852 suspects who attempted to cross the border illegally.
