Looking back at a year of mixed blessings

Terrorism

Paying a high price

On Dec 31, when the Ministry of Public Security published the names of the 298 police officers that lost their lives in the course of their duties during 2013, I wasn't surprised to see that the largest number of deaths occurred in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.

The 36 names from Xinjiang include six officers killed in an attack in Selibuya township in the southern prefecture of Kashgar on April 23. Added to that were the two officers who lost their lives when the police station in Lukqun, in the eastern prefecture of Turpan, was attacked by a gang on June 26. The name of a special police officer who died while defusing explosives left by a group of suspected terrorists at a training camp in Kashgar's Yecheng county is also on the list.

I visited the police stations in Lukqun and Selibuya soon after the attacks; the walls were stained with blood and the burned buildings and charred remains of police cars all indicated the intensity of the attacks.

I can still remember an injured police officer from Lukqun who told me how the assailants decapitated one of his colleagues and threw the severed head into a burning police car. Scratches made by knives were apparent on the stainless steel filing cabinets and doors on the first floor of the station.

When I asked an eyewitness in Lukqun where the gang killed his colleague, he quietly pointed at my feet. I suddenly realized I was standing on a large pool of blackened dried blood. That was when I realized the attacks were so close and anyone can become a victim.

When I arrived at the scene of the attack in Selibuya in April, a police officer told me the forensics team had difficulty identifying the bodies of the nine people, including the head of the police station, who had been locked in a small room which had then been set alight, because the badly burned bodies were tangled together. The gang then set fire to the police station, which came under attack for a second time in November, leaving two officers injured.

Terrorists in Xinjiang have become more active and the attacks became more frequent in 2013. Police stations have become a new target for the groups, who portray their attacks as anti-government in nature to gain support from residents who are dissatisfied with the authorities, according to experts.

The details of many of these deaths may never be released publicly. Sometimes, the dead are just numbers in media statements, but they all deserve respect. Although gone, they will not be forgotten.

Further reading: Recalling Pain from Day of Horror, published on May 2, and Pain Lingers After Xinjiang Terrorist Attack on July 5