Risalat, protected by her British passport, returned to Urumqi the very day innocent Uyghurs were mown down by soldiers in 2009.

The Uyghurs’ Massacre of July 2009: A Survivor Remembers That Day in Urumqi

07/05/2019RUTH INGRAM |

Risalat, protected by her British passport, returned to Urumqi the very day innocent Uyghurs were mown down by soldiers in 2009.

Risalat accepted to talk to Bitter Winter but still does not feel safe showing her face.

by Ruth Ingram

Table of Contents

A Woman Remembers

Piles of human bodies waiting to be scooped up from the side of the road is Risalat’s enduring memory of July 5th 2009. But where these corpses had come from, who they were, and why there were so many, bullet-ridden and motionless in pools of blood on the street was a ghoulish mystery that only later she was able to piece together.

In the fading light of that memorable Sunday evening ten years ago, she hardly dared believe her eyes as she peered through a crack in the curtain from her vantage point on the thirteenth floor. As the bulldozers and diggers stood by, about to shovel them up and pile them high into waiting trucks, a single woman stood slowly clutching her baby covered in blood. Risalat still remembers the sound of her pitiful wailing.

Earlier that day, unbeknown to her, parts of Urumqi city had become a battleground. Chinese had been massacred by rampaging Uyghurs

” data-gt-translate-attributes=”[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]”>Uyghurs armed with knives and bricks, and that no one doubts. But what Risalat was witnessing, it later emerged, could be none other than a summary round up and execution by government forces of hundreds of perceived “troublemakers.” To all appearances this could only be read as chilling payback after the afternoon’s events, to avoid the inconvenience of a mass trial.

What Really Happened

Official figures of 197 dead and 1700 injured following the riots were nothing but airbrushing, according to any Uyghur or Han spoken to on that day or since. Journalists visiting hospitals all over the city, were met with rows of bodies and doctors overwhelmed with the shear numbers of dead and injured.

But Risalat had witnessed something apart from simply the aftermath of the day’s mayhem. She said that what she saw was different. This was quite separate she said, and amounted to several hundred dispatched in cold blood. “Repeated all over the city, who knows how many thousand might have been executed,” she said.

Visitors Not Welcome

Ten years later that ghastly picture has still not left her. Recurring flashbacks still remind her of what she saw. A simple holiday back to see family and friends in Xinjiang

Painful Memories

Everyone has their own memories of “Qi Wu.” (The acronym for the July 5th riots) It was a defining moment in the history of Urumqi. Because the riots were spread randomly over the city, some people enjoyed their Sunday blissfully unaware of anything untoward. Their day of rest passed without incident. Only the next day did news start to seep through and the extent of the full ghastliness emerge. Others were caught up in the violence, unleashed it seemed because of frustration with government inaction over the assault by Han Chinese factory workers on two of their Uyghur female colleagues. Young people from all over the city converged on the People’s Square, but the peaceful student demonstration to demand action, spilled over when a number of Uyghurs

Post-Traumatic Stress

She says she is forever rehearsing in her mind the events of that day, and trying to make sense of it all. She remembers thinking back, that she had seen a group of young people that afternoon walking past their apartment block in silence in the direction of the Peoples’ Square. A Uyghur youth was brandishing a Chinese flag, but they had all seemed orderly and peaceful. “Looking back, I realize these young people must have been part of the crowd that gathered that afternoon to protest,” she said. “We thought it a bit strange, but not much else until all the other terrible things started to happen.”

Contrasting images of Xinjiang: children playing on the carousel against a background of the Hotan market “home guards” practicing a drill.

Around 9.30 pm, once the shots appeared to abate, a cousin decided to make a run for it. Ten minutes later she was back, wailing and beating her chest. Parked around the corner were two massive trucks spilling over with dead bodies. “We’re all done for,” she cried. “When will they come for us too?” She asked. More automatic firing ensued. No one could sleep. Around 1.30 am, a haunting “Allahu Akbar!” resonated through loudspeakers on the road below. Mere minutes later they heard more rapid machine gun fire. This had been a trap Risalat later realized, to lure the remaining “troublemakers” onto the streets. This same scenario was repeated half an hour later. More shooting.

Some time later all was quiet. They dared to look through the curtains. Police vehicles and army vehicles were everywhere and all that could be heard was the swish, swish, swish of high pressure hoses cleaning buildings, streets and even trees. “I will remember that sound until my dying day,” she said. “Every trace of blood and human remains were wiped clean. Swish swish swish for hours through the night.”

The next day dawned deathly silent. “People were stunned and everyone was too afraid even to mention that dark night to their neighbors,” she said. Local government officials gave out free bread and vegetables and told people to stay at home and government TV was full of anti-American, “anti-separatist” propaganda and interviews with the “heroes” who had stood up against the splittists.

Only a few days later did anyone dare to ask about the disappeared, many of whom were children or husbands, friends of friends or relatives who had gone missing that night. Most have never come to light even now.