Uiger protesters gather during a demonstration in Urumqi, and clashed with the Chinese riot police in the capital of China's Muslim region of Xinjiang. --PHOTO: REUTERS
THE mood in Xinjiang's capital Urumqi is still tense three days after deadly riots there.
Following Tuesday morning's protests by Uighur women and children in front of foreign journalists and paramiliary police, crowds of Han Chinese are now gathered outside their office blocks near the People's Square in the heart of this city - one of the areas which saw deadly riots on Sunday night.
For the past hour now, Han men have been standing outside buildings and patrolling nearby streets holding metal pipes and wooden planks studded with nails.
Women in office clothes accompany some of them, saying they had heard that the Uighurs were 'coming back' and that they wanted to protect their buildings and themselves.
Close by, the People's Square is flooded with paramilitary police. But they are not dispersing these crowds.
Sunday's unrest, which killed at least 156 people, was the worst ethnic violence in China in decades.
