Thousands of Chinese demonstrators crowded the streets of Urumqi in western China on Thursday to complaint what they say is a lack of police protection, witnesses said.

Over the past month, more than 400 ethnic majority Han Chinese have been stabbed with tainted syringes by Uyghurs, the Muslim minority, according to local news reports. The stabbing fueled Thursday's protests by Han Chinese in the capital of China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous area.

Many of those attack with the hypodermic needles were hospitalized, but there have been no reports of deaths, the reports said.

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