Xi calls for strong ethnic unity after rampage

President Xi Jinping called on Tuesday for resolute opposition to any words and actions that damage the country's ethnic unity.

"We will build a ‘wall of bronze and iron' for ethnic unity, social stability and national unity," Xi said while joining discussion of the second session of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference National Committee.

"Unity and stability are blessings, while secession and turmoil are disasters. People of all ethnic groups in the country should cherish the ethnic unity."

Knife-wielding terrorists killed 29 people and injured another 143 in an attack at Kunming Railway Station on Saturday. Police shot and killed four of the attackers and wounded another, a woman. The three other suspects were arrested on Monday.

Authorities say evidence at the station points to separatists from the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.

Qin Guangrong, Party secretary of Yunnan province and a deputy to the National People's Congress, said on Tuesday that police tracked the three suspects who fled Kunming to the Honghe Hani and Yi autonomous prefecture in southern Yunnan and arrested them in Shadian, a largely Muslim township in the prefecture, 40 hours after the attack. Qin was the first Yunnan deputy to the NPC to make an official statement on the massacre.

Qin said the Kunming Railway Station hadn't received any advance intelligence of the attack. Video surveillance footage at the station showed five people entering a waiting room and then attacking everyone in sight.

A funeral home in Kunming received 27 bodies the next morning. More than 2,000 medical workers treated attack victims, performing more than 100 surgeries, but two of the wounded died after emergency care, Qin said.

The Yunnan government has organized groups of officials to take care of all of the victims' families, and every person wounded in the attack has been assigned a medical team for treatment, Qin said.

The handrails and large crowds at the station made it difficult for people to escape, he said, and that made it possible for the terrorists to kill and injure so many in such a short time.

"Lessons should be learned from this assault. Yunnan, the frontier of China's opening-up to South and Southeast Asia, should strengthen its information gathering on potential dangers to prevent any more tragedies like this," he said.

Although order was soon restored in Kunming after the attack, Qin said, some people from Xinjiang are now facing challenges. For example, the Dali Bai autonomous prefecture, a prestigious travel destination in Yunnan, checked the nonnative population on Sunday, and Abudul, a Uygur who has lived there for eight years, was told by police to leave his residence.

Abudul, a restaurant owner who became famous for his authentic mutton shashlik he used to sell on the street, considers Dali his second home. Dali police apologized to Abudul on Tuesday, and he still runs his restaurant.

Abudulani Akarbek, 25, a Uygur restaurant owner in Kunming, said only his friends from Xinjiang visited his store after the attack, a sharp contrast to the previous crowds in his restaurant.

"The attackers are just a tiny group of Xinjiang people and don't represent us. We are also victims in the attack," he said.

Mutalif Wubuli, commissioner of Kashgar prefecture in Xinjiang, said he knows that some cities have stepped up the management of Xinjiang people after the Kunming attack. "But I hope authorities will also consider the feeling of the Xinjiang people," he said.

"People from Xinjiang and those from other parts of China need to try to respect each other rather than cause harm. Finding employment outside the region may become difficult for Xinjiang people after the attack, but, hopefully, that will be just a short-term problem."

Cui Jia and Xinhua contributed to this story.