The trial of four people charged with killing 31 people in a knife attack outside a railway station in the southern Chinese city of Kunming has begun.

The Kunming Intermediate People’s Court said in a statement Friday that the four were charged with belonging to a terrorist group and murder.

On March 1, a group of attackers armed with knives hacked 31 people to death and wounded another 141. Beijing has blamed militants from the far northwest region of Xinjiang for the attack

Chinese authorities shot and killed four of the suspected attackers. 

Mainly Muslim Uighurs complain of persecution by the state in Xinjiang. The region is about 1,500 kilometers from where the knife attack happened in the city of Kunming, the capital of Yunnan Province.
…