"My husband! I want to take you back home. Why can't I take you back home?" wailed Chen, 29, her knees buckling with grief as two female relatives held her up by the arms at a funeral home outside the city.

Ten days after violence in Urumqi that saw savage attacks by Muslim Uighurs on China's dominant Han ethnic group, many victims in the Xinjiang regional capital are fixing shattered windows and reviving broken businesses.

But relatives of the dead are confronting the far more difficult task of rebuilding shattered families and dreams, a job made all the more difficult by the senselessness of the murders.

Chen's husband, Ding Haohua, was beaten to death on July 5 as Uighurs rampaged through Urumqi city, according to friends, who said he was just walking along a street when he was attacked.

The Uighurs were venting decades of hatred over what they say is Chinese repression and domination by the Han. The brutal violence left at least 184 dead, mostly Han.

Large paper wreaths this week lined walls at the Yanerwo funeral home, draped with sashes that read "Have a peaceful journey, brother, father and comrade," for Ding, 35, who also left behind a one-year-old son.

Firecrackers snapped in the distance from other funeral ceremonies while the facility's crematorium belched brown smoke into the sky.

"We were from the same village and I knew him since we were kids," Chen Baochun, 40, said of Ding, holding out his hand at the height of a young child.

"Why did he have to die? He was a good man who worked hard to raise the living standards of his family."

Like several Han victims memorialised at the busy funeral home, Ding had come to Urumqi several years ago as an economic migrant from poor Anhui province in eastern China, eventually opening a small convenience store.

He was one of many drawn by the promise of economic growth in Xinjiang, but who became innocent victims of local Uighur anger sparked in part by the Han influx.

Another Anhui migrant, Fu Guanli, was also killed on the street by Uighur rioters, relatives said.

Wearing a pointed white mourning hood and carrying a framed picture of his father, 12-year-old Fu Qiqi led a grim funeral procession, tears streaming down the boy's face as other relatives wailed around him.

Illustrating the ripple effect of such killings, Fu, 47, also left behind a wife and two younger daughters, plus a large extended family back home who depended on his earnings from construction work.

"We will take (Fu's remains) back home now. His family won't come back here," his brother, Fu Guanxia, 49, said quietly as he smoked a cigarette, his eyes reddened from crying.

"We will have to rely on the government's help now."

The government has promised families of "innocent" victims 200,000 yuan (29,000 dollars) in compensation plus 10,000 yuan towards each funeral.

But many survivors will bear deep scars, both physical and emotional.

Emerging from a makeshift centre where victims register for pay outs, Yi Ling removed a cap to reveal a deep, swollen gash on her shaven head.

Yi, a Han, was struck with a blunt object the night of July 5. She does not know who did it.

"My feelings about this are extremely complicated and I can't make sense of them," she said, fighting back sobs as her 10-year-old son looked on.

"These were not the actions of human beings."

Yi now has nightmares and fears for her family's safety.

"I'm afraid there will be more violence. The ethnic contradictions here are just too big for the government to solve," she said.

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