Protests after herder is run down by coal truck

Hundreds of ethnic Mongolians protested outside a local government headquarters in Inner Mongolia on Monday, with hundreds of middle school pupils taking to the streets the next day, after a herder was allegedly killed by two Han Chinese truck drivers, a rights watchdog and online postings said.

Unrest is rare in Inner Mongolia, a relatively stable minority region.

According to the New York-based Southern Mongolian Human Rights Information Centre, protesters gathered outside the main administration office of the Right Ujumchin Banner, while hundreds more were blocked on their way. A banner is the Mongolian equivalent of a county.

The rights group said campuses were guarded by police to prevent student protests. But bloggers who posted online accounts with pictures yesterday said the incident had provoked hundreds of middle school pupils to march to the city-level Xilinhot government office on Tuesday.

The demonstrators were protesting against the brutal death of Mergen, an organiser of the banner's Mongolian herders, who tried to stop coal-hauling trucks from taking a shortcut across fragile grazing land, the centre said.

The centre posted photos of Monday's demonstration and others said to be of Mergen's body. It said his head had been crushed under the wheels of a 100-tonne coal hauler driven by two Han Chinese drivers on May 10 and his body dragged by the truck for 150 metres.