| Lhasa Riot Survivor’s Account 22 March 2008
Zhuoma is a Tibetan girl and worked at a fashion shop
on Beijing Road in the downtown Tibet. Friday
afternoon, 14 March, mobs suddenly appeared on
the streets. The staff hurriedly close the store,
and many of them left their work for home,
leaving 6 girls, including Zhuoma, all aged
around 20, retreated to an attic. They lived in
the areas that were said had also been racked by
unrest.
“All around is the
sound of smashing glasses and shouting, and we
could only huddle together crying,” recalled
Zhuoma. "Minutes later, a gang of men and
women broke into the shop, and I heard
they spoke in a strange language that I could not
understand - that is definitely
not local dialect. We held our breadth,
and dared not to make a sound which may attract
mobs attention."
After a while, the
premises became quie again. Zhuoma popped her
head out, and found downstairs were engulfed in
flames. She jumped out of room and rashed down
the wooden ladders for the gate.
The mobs closed the rolling door with a
narrow gap left between the floor and the gate.
Summoned all her strength, Zhuoma eventually got
herself squeezed out of the building. Before
running away form the blazing shop, she shouted
to the girls still trapped inside to follow her.
On her way, she saw shop after shop to be burned
down, and the violent criminals assaulting
passers-by. On a roadside, she found a woman
lying on the ground with face smeared with blood.
When she eventually took refugee at a residential
compound in Renan Road, she realised she was
alone without her workmates.
Later Mr Tang, the owner
of the store, returned to the ruin site, and
discovered the charted bodies of five girls in
the attic, some reclined in their beds, and
others sat on their beds.
Among them, the
18-year-old Han girl was the one who sent the
last text message to the ouside world, to her
father at 4.15pm: “Dad, so many vicious people
in the store, we are too afraid to get out. But
don’t worries about me, tell mom and sister not
to go to street.” 10 minutes later, she was
burned to death.
(source:
xinhuanet.com)
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