Attack kills 31 in China’s Xinjiang province

(BEIJING, China)
Police authorities said on Thursday in Beijing that a bomb explosion killed 31 people and injured another 94 in China’s restive north-west province of Xinjiang.
Authorities said that two vehicles drove into the crowd at a central market of provincial capital Urumqi at 7:50 a.m. and explosives were thrown out of them. One of the vehicles then exploded with loud bangs.
Afterwards, emergency service vehicles are tackling the blaze and taking the injured to hospital, as the affected areas have been cordoned off.
The incident comes a day after courts in the far-western region sentenced 39 people to up to 15 years in prison for spreading videos and other content promoting terror.
They were the first sentenced in a crackdown leading to the arrest of 232 suspects since the beginning of April, the Xinjiang Regional Higher People’s Court said.
It follows recent terrorist attacks blamed on ethnic Muslim Uighurs, who make up about eight million of Xinjiang’s 21.8 million people.
(NAN)