May 7, 2010 4:28 PM EDT
The death toll from riots on Sunday, May 2nd 2010, in China's Muslim Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region has risen to 140, Xinhua news agency said on Monday.
Riots began in the regional capital of Urumqi on Sunday when a group of protesters demanded an investigation into the deaths of two ethnic Uighurs killed in a fight with Han Chinese workers at a toy factory in late June.
Xinhua said protesters from the Uighur Muslim ethnic minority group began attacking ethnic Han pedestrians, burning vehicles and attacking buses with batons and rocks.
The news agency cited a spokesman for the regional government as saying that a total of 57 people died in the riots. The others died later in hospital. The spokesman said the death toll could still increase.
Xinhua said order in the region was partially restored, but the situation was still "tense."
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Chinese authorities said the unrest had been "instigated" by forces outside of China.
"It was instigated and directed from abroad, and carried out by outlaws in the country," an official statement said on Monday.
AFP news agency quoted general secretary of the Uighur American Association in Washington Alim Seytoff as saying that police had begun "indiscriminately" shooting at protesting crowds.
Xinjiang's eight million Uighurs have complained of political, cultural and religious persecution by Beijing and there have been repeated calls by Uighurs for independence.
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