Chinese court have sentenced a further 5 people to death over murder and other crimes committed during ethnic riots that occurred in the western region of Xinjiang in July .

“Two others were also sentenced to life imprisonment by the Intermediate People’s Court of Urumqi” said an unnamed woman who answered the phone at the media center of the Xinjiang regional government.

The official Xinhua News Agency did not immediately give the names or the ethnic background of the latest five to be sentenced to death. Earlier reports on people arrested after the riots in Urumqi,  said most of the people were Uighurs.

Uighurs attacked members of China’s Han ethnic majority on the July 5 riots where Hundreds of people were rounded up by police and the Chinese army. Uighurs are a Turkic Muslim ethnic group linguistically and culturally distinct from the Han and many resent Beijing’s heavy-handed rule in Xinjiang, their traditional homeland.

China blames the rioting on overseas-based groups agitating for border rights for Uighurs in Xinjiang. Five months after the violence, Xinjiang remains smothered in heavy security, with Internet access cut and international direct dialing calls blocked.