DHAKA: More than 450 people were killed in China’s restive mainly Muslim Xinjiang region last year, a rights group said - with three times as many deaths among members of the Uighur minority than ethnic Han Chinese.

Xinjiang has seen a wave of unrest, labeled by the authorities as ‘terrorism’ and blamed on ‘separatists’, which has sometimes spread to other parts of China.

Information in the area is strictly controlled by the authorities, and the Washington-based Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP) used data from Chinese and overseas media reports for its analysis, giving ranges for most of its figures.

Between 457 and 478 people died last year, it said, adding it had been able to identify 235-240 as Uighur and 80-86 as Han, China’s ethnic majority.

BDST: 1316 HRS, MAR 04, 2015