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Shotguns used in fight; 19 injured

By Li Wenfang (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-11-13 08:08

GUANGZHOU -- The local police are investigating a fight between two villages in Heping county, Guangdong province, in which shotguns were used.

The fight, which occurred last Thursday, involved about 100 people, and 19 were injured.

A villager shows his shotgun wounds on in Heping, Guangdong Province, November 10, 2008.

It was triggered by the beating of a 16-year-old junior high school student of Changsha village by some villagers of Matang at an Internet caf last Tuesday, Tian Dongping, a spokesman of Heping county, told China Daily.

The Changsha villagers said the beating was a deliberate humiliation of one of their own.

On Wednesday, a Changsha villager sent a text message with a mobile phone number to some Matang villagers.

The Matang villagers responded by organizing a gang armed with shotguns, knives and pipes, to attack the Changsha villagers.

The fight occurred on Thursday evening at a roller skating rink in Pengzhai town.

Police sent to the scene could not stop the fight in which some Matang villagers opened fire.

A Changsha villager told the Guangzhou-based New News Express that the Matang villagers seized two trucks and opened fire from behind them. More than a dozen shots were fired.

Nineteen Changsha villagers were wounded. None of them seriously.

The police have detained three Matang villagers and seized three shotguns. Two are in their early 20s and the other is a teenager.

Tian said the two villages have been feuding for some time, and occasional fights have broken out, but none where weapons were used.