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Fabian Kretschmer

BEIJING — Hundreds of people took to the streets of China’s Xinjiang province in the northwest part of the country on Saturday, protesting the government’s strict coronavirus containment measures after a deadly fire that may have been exacerbated by the rules.

Chinese media showed footage of people breaking through metal fences in the city of Urumqi. Protesters can be heard shouting “End the lockdown!”

Large parts of the Xinjiang region and its capital, Urumqi, have been under lockdown for more than 100 days.

There were also protests in Beijing, where several housing estates are under lockdown, as videos showed. In several neighborhoods, residents broke through the fences surrounding their housing estates.

Such open protests are unusual in the communist-ruled country with more than 1.4 billion inhabitants.

The protests were triggered by a deadly fire that broke out in a residential building in Urumqi in which at least 10 people were killed and nine others injured.

Several residents said on social media that the restrictions had hampered rescue efforts, with some people struggling to escape the burning building due to locked doors.

Some also left their apartments too late, or not at all, out of fear of violating the lockdown restrictions, according to the reports.

Meanwhile, the fire brigade was said to have arrived fairly late because of fences and cars that had blocked the way.

The Chinese leadership has been criticized for years for its treatment of the Uighur minority in the region. Human rights activists say hundreds of thousands of people have been put into reeducation camps there.

China is currently seeing its highest COVID-19 case numbers since the beginning of the pandemic. On Saturday, the health commission in Beijing reported a record number of almost 35,000 new cases.

Extensive restrictions on movement are currently in place in multiple cities with more than 1 million inhabitants, such as Beijing, the severely affected southern Chinese city of Guangzhou and Chongqing.

While the rest of the world has learned to live with the virus, China continues to stick to its strict zero-COVID policy, sealing off entire residential areas after detecting individual cases.

©2022 dpa GmbH. Distributed by