BEIJING, May 22 (Reuters) - A explosion hit a park in the regional capital of China's western region of Xinjiang on Thursday morning, the official Xinhua news agency reported on Thursday.
It was not clear yet whether there were casualties in the blast, which took place in a park in Urumqi at around 8am local time (0000 GMT), Xinhua said.
China has blamed a series of knife and bomb attacks in recent months on separatist militants from Xinjiang, which is the traditional home of the ethnic Uighur people. Xinjiang has been plagued by violence for years, but rights activists and exile groups say the government's own heavy handed policies in the region have sowed the seeds of unrest. (Reporting By Megha Rajagopalan and Shao Xiaoyi; Editing by Jason Subler)
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