Riots have killed 27 people in China's restive far western region of Xinjiang, Chinese state media report. The incident happened in Turban prefecture early on Wednesday, June 26, according to BBC News.

Police opened fire after a mob armed with knives attacked police stations and a local government building, Xinhua news agency quoted officials as saying.

There are sporadic outbreaks of violence in Xinjiang, where there are rumbling ethnic tensions between Muslim Uighur and Han Chinese communities.

The incident happened in Turban's remote township of Lukqun, around 200km (120 miles) south-east of the region's capital, Urumqi.

The Xinhua news agency report, citing local officials, said rioters stabbed people and set police cars alight. Seventeen people, including nine security personnel and eight civilians, were killed before police shot dead 10 of the rioters, it said. At least three others were injured and were being treated in hospital, it added.

The Xinhua report did not provide any information on the ethnicity of those involved in the riot or on what sparked it.

In 2009 almost 200 people - mostly Han Chinese - were killed after deadly rioting erupted in Urumqi between the Han Chinese and Uighur communities.