URUMQI, China (Reuters) – China raised the death  toll from ethnic rioting in Xinjiang, giving for the first time  the ethnicity of the dead, and a big security presence in the  city at the centre of the strife prevented protests yesterday. The official Xinhua news agency said 184 people had died in  the July 5 riots in Urumqi, the Xinjiang regional capital, and  137 of those killed were Han Chinese, who form the majority of  China’s 1.3 billion population. The previous death toll was 156.

The latest figure included 46 Uighurs, the largely Muslim  people of Xinjiang who share cultural bonds with Central Asian  peoples. All but one were men. Uighurs, once a sizeable majority  in Xinjiang, now make up 46 percent of its 21.3 million people,  according to government statistics.

Xinhua said the other person killed in the attacks that  erupted last weekend was a member of the Hui ethnic group, which  is Muslim but culturally akin to Han Chinese. The brief report did not say whether any of the dead were  killed by security forces. The reaction on Urumqi streets to the official death toll  reflected the deepening ethnic divide in Xinjiang, with Uighurs  expressing disbelief in the number. “That’s the Han people’s number. We have our own number,”  said Akumjia, a Uighur resident, as he eyed security forces who  had cordoned off a street where there was an outburst of protest  near a mosque and then arrests on Friday. A security forces  helicopter buzzed overhead.

“Maybe many, many more Uighurs died. The police were scared  and lost control.”
Close to where he stood, what appeared to be a spray of  bullet holes could be seen on the glass front of a Bank of China  office. There were no bullets among the shards. The government  has not said what kind of forces suppressed the bloody rioting.  Many Uighur residents say they heard or saw gunfire.

Chinese authorities had delayed releasing the ethnic  breakdown of the dead, possibly out of concern it would further  inflame the situation. Several Han Chinese residents said distrust of Uighurs was  likely to persist.

“Uighurs also died … But then they blame Han for being so  angry about the killing and looting,” said Zhao Hong, a Han  resident who said she saw some of the bloodshed from her home  window before hiding.

Beijing does not want to lose its grip on the vast territory  that borders Russia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,  Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, has abundant oil  reserves and is China’s largest natural gas-producing region.

Zhou Yongkang, the top domestic security official in China’s  ruling Communist Party, said the country now had to “vigorously  prosecute this tough battle to protect stability in Xinjiang,”  the Xinjiang Daily reported yesterday.

Human Rights Watch said that the government had deployed  some 20,000 troops in Urumqi since the July 5 riots, which broke  out after security forces broke up a protest over the deaths of  Uighur workers in southern China.

The show of force appears to be preventing fresh unrest, and  the police have issued a ban on protests and “illegal assembly,”  Xinhua said.