Victims of an attack by masked men in a Hong Kong train station on Sunday have accused police of not responding to their calls for help, saying: “We saved ourselves … because nobody else was there.”
Their faces obscured by masks, they gave emotional testimony at a press briefing on Wednesday alongside the Democratic party lawmaker Lam Cheuk-ting, who was also injured in the attacks.
Their statements came as Beijing blamed the unrest in Hong Kong on “black hands” from the US, advising America to remember that “Hong Kong is China’s Hong Kong”.
One man, who gave his surname as Leung, was on his way to meet friends when he stopped at Yuen Long and saw the men attacking commuters on the platform and in train carriages.
“The carriage was full of the smell of blood,” he said. He tried to help a man who was on the ground and was beaten over the head. “During the whole thing I didn’t see a single policeman or MTR [transport] staff,” he said, adding that the attack lasted 30 minutes. “I kept looking for the police but they never came.”
A woman who gave her surname as Hui said she witnessed the attacks from inside her train carriage whose doors did not open when her train reached the station. She said she watched helplessly, calling the emergency services but no one answered. “We saved ourselves … because nobody else was there”, she said.
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Others stressed that those attacked were not just protesters. A 58-year-old man recounted in English how he arrived at the station with his son to find women screaming and asking for help and more than 100 men in white “attacking kids”. He described the 20 minutes he experienced there as “life and death”. “We are innocent citizens, passengers on the way home,” he said. “I am asking for global help for Hong Kong people. We don’t trust our government.”
On Sunday, dozens of men in white T-shirts attacked commuters, some of whom were returning from a mass anti-government march that day. The attack and delayed response by police has led to accusations of government collusion with organised crime groups active in those areas.
The attacks have added new momentum to protests, which began over a controversial extradition bill and have now taken on new demands, including an investigation into police behaviour.
On Wednesday protesters temporarily blocked morning commuters at a major transit station in Admiralty, in central Hong Kong, as they demanded answers from the transportation authority. Several other rallies are planned for the week and weekend.
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