Something hideously violent happened in Elishku. Whether it was a separatist attack or a civilian massacre is shrouded in the mists of conflict, control, claim and counter-claim that plague China's mainly Muslim region of Xinjiang.
According to authorities, 96 civilians and "terrorists" died when militants attacked a police station in the townshaip last July 28. Residents, speaking to foreign media for the first time, say that hundreds of people mounted a protest against government restrictions on religion which was brutally put down.
"Everyone who joined the crowd is either dead or in jail," said Mahmouti, who hid in his nearby home with his then-pregnant wife. "No one has been heard from since, no one knows where they are now."
It is by far the bloodiest incident in Beijing's "strike hard" campaign against violence in Xinjiang, launched after an attack on a train station in the regional capital Urumqi a year ago on Thursday.
Allegations have swirled ever since the killings in Elishku but information in the far-western region is hard to verify independently, and AFP was the first foreign media to speak to locals on the scene.
Residents described more than 500 people, some carrying hoes, axes and other farm tools, marching down a dusty tree-lined road to meet a line of security personnel armed with assault rifles.
Mahmouti heard them ordering the crowd to "Step back", and moments later, a stream of gunfire. The shooting continued intermittently for hours, he added.
"Anyone who went out that day never came back," said Yusup, a farmer who did not want to give his last name for fear of reprisals. "It was chaos, maybe as many as 1,000 people vanished."
The villagers are Uighurs, a Turkic mostly-Muslim minority whose homeland is Xinjiang but who have more in common culturally with Central Asia than the rest of Han-dominated China. Uighurs make up 46 per cent of Xinjiang's population, according to 2010 census figures, down from 75 percent in 1953.
Areas of the resource-rich region have at times been part of different states, including Russia, at others independent, but it has largely been ruled by Beijing since the late 1800s.
It saw several 20th-century rebellions and in recent years occasional violence has become more frequent, sometimes spreading beyond the province.
