As the full horror of the attack began to emerge, the final three suspects from an eight-strong gang of knife-wielding attackers accused of killing 29 people and injuring 143 at a Chinese train station were arrested Monday, state media reported.
“Six or seven men in black with knives rushed at us stabbing everyone in front of them,” one witness told the South China Morning Post, adding that his friend had been killed as he tried to shield his young daughter.
“He was sliced from chest to neck and fell to the ground with blood pouring from the wound," he added.
Another told the paper his mother had been repeatedly slashed to death after she fell over trying to escape from the attackers in Kunming, southern China.
A "terrorist gang of eight members," with a leader identified as Abdurehim Kurban, was responsible for the Saturday attack, the state-run news agency Xinhua reported. Four were shot dead and an injured female suspect was arrested at the scene, and the final three suspects were arrested Monday.
The Kunming government on Sunday blamed Ethnic Turkish Uighur separatists who have been sporadically fighting for an independent state in Xinjiang, a province in northwestern China.
Police swept a Uighur district in Kunming, where members of the small, predominantly Muslim community told Reuters they felt they were under a cloud of suspicion. The city is some 2,500 miles from Xinjiang.
It was the first major attack blamed on people from Xinjiang since a car plowed into tourists in Beijing's Tiananmen Square, killing the three people in the vehicle and two bystanders.
Chinese president Xi Jinping urged the law enforcement to solve the case, Xinhua reported.
Reuters contributed to this report.