Chinese President Xi Jinping promised an all-out effort to combat terrorism yesterday after nearly 30 people were slashed to death in an attack blamed on Uighur separatists.

A group of people wielding knives stormed Kunming railway station in the capital of southwestern province Yunnan at around 9pm on Saturday.

Chinese authorities said at least 28 people were confirmed dead and more than 100 were injured, while five of the attackers were shot dead and some others detained.

The identity of the attackers had not been confirmed yesterday but news agency Xinhua said it was a “terrorist attack carried out by Xinjiang separatist forces.”

The far-western Xinjiang region is home to a Muslim Uighur insurgency that Chinese authorities have been accused of suppressing with an overly heavy hand.

Attacks are usually limited to that region but Kunming is more than 900 miles from the separatists’ base.

Witnesses and authorities said roughly 10 people, including two women, attacked the station and that police were still hunting for some of the assailants.

Mr Xi sent Politburo member Meng Jianzhu and state councillor Guo Shengkun to Yunnan to guide the response and visit injured civilians and relatives of the victims.

Chinese police were reportedly rounding up members of the local Uighur community — which is only believed to number in the dozens — for questioning yesterday.

“How do we know them?” Uighur man Akpar told Associated Press.

“We could not tell if the assailants were Uighurs as they were all dressed in black. We did not like the attack either.”

Xinhua reporters saw dozens of bodies at the hospital.

Fifty-year-old Chen Guizhen told Xinhua that her husband had been killed in the attack.

“Why are the terrorists so cruel?” she asked while clutching his blood-stained ID card.

And Yang Haifei told the agency he’d been knifed on his chest and back.

He said he was buying a train ticket when a group of people mainly dressed in black rushed into the station.

He started running but those who were slower suffered serious injuries, Mr Yang said.

“They just fell on the ground.”