Uighur boy missing, feared killed by cops

It seems things are hardly improving for Chinese-Uighur relations in China's far western province of Xinjiang.

In the latest troubling development in race relations in the Muslim region, Radio Free Asia, which has Uighur-language reporters, says a 6-year-old ethnic Uighur boy is missing and feared dead after Chinese police opened fire on a group of Uighurs who had been branded "terrorists."

As always with incidents in Xinjiang, the details of the Dec. 28 incident are murky. RFA says one local policeman was stabbed by a Uighur and seven Uighurs were killed when police opened fire on them. The report says that besides the missing boy, five other children remain in police custody. The news service quoted a local official saying the 6-year-old had "take part" in the standoff with police and thrown stones at the cops.

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