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Anxious families look for relatives missing in Urumqi riot

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-07-10 02:29

URUMQI: They sobbed, they cried, loud and clear. They gazed at a spot of the floor for a long time, with sorrowful faces and eyes swelling with tears.

They, in groups, followed one and another on Thursday into a room on the 13th floor of Hotel World Plaza, choosing forms to register: dead or missing.

If you call that lucky, some people just filled forms to declare their damage of property in the deadly riot, which took place on Sunday evening in Urumqi, capital of northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.

Related readings:  Hu: Xinjiang stability most important task  Expert: Xinjiang riot an act of terrorism  Evidence shows Rebiya Kadeer behind Xinjiang riot: Govt  Travel agencies suspend group trips to Xinjiang  Xinjiang: A history of intertwined ethnic ties  Countries support China to quell riot  Urumqi to raise $14.6M to comfort riot victims

The riot has left at least 156 dead and more than 1,000 others injured.

Holding a death certificate of his brother Yu Hai, attested by Urumqi City Public Security Bureau, 29-year-old Yu Lin sat quietly but mournfully in a chair with his grieved wife Tong Yahui.

When approached and asked by Xinhua reporters, Yu and his wife Tong suddenly broke into tears.

"My brother was killed (in the riot), this had been confirmed by police photos and DNA testing," Tong cried out immediately at her first words, and then choked with sobs.

Yu, his eyes also reddened, continued to narrate his brother's story in the room which serves as the office to handle the aftermath of the riot.

"I called my brother Yu Hai at around 9:30 p.m. Sunday when the violence broke out," said Yu the junior. "The phone call was answered by a policeman and he said my brother might be caught in the middle of the riot, and he told me to rush to the People's Hospital."

"I walked all my way to the hospital from the South Gate as violence still mounted on streets," Yu the junior recounted. "I just thought of my brother at that moment and only wanted to be with him when he was in trouble, without knowing the danger I also faced."

In the hospital, he was told by a nurse that his brother tried to back his car from the mobs, but failed. Yu Hai was pulled out of the car and beaten by dozens of thugs.

Yu the younger got the things left from his brother: a black mobile phone and a handbag, and an identification card. The police recovered them by the roadside.

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