At least 140 people have been killed and more than 800 others injured as ethnic violence erupted in China’s restive Xinjiang region. According to Xinhua, a government spokesman confirmed on Monday that at least 140 people were killed, after hundreds of locals took to the streets of the regional capital Urumqi on Sunday evening — burning and smashing vehicles and confronting police and anti-riot troops.

Xinhua did not say how many people were involved or how many have been arrested, but AFP said that the confrontation involved around 3,000 Uighurs, and that at least 300 had been arrested.
The unrest had followed a protest against government handling of a clash between Han Chinese and Uighur factory workers in far southern China in late June, when two Uighurs died.
Police used electric cattle prods and fired gunshots into the air to try to quell the unrest. Three people from China’s majority Han Chinese ethnic group died in the attacks and an overnight curfew was declared.