Forty-five people have been given jail terms ranging from four years to life imprisonment in China's western Xinjiang region for terrorism and helping others illegally cross the Chinese border.

The autonomous regions' higher people's court said on Thursday that the 45 were tried in 10 cases in courts in Yili, Aksu, Hotan, Kashgar and Karamay recently.

In two cases, 18 human traffickers from other parts of the country were found guilty of helping more than 300 people enter Vietnam, making illegal earnings of nearly 2 million yuan (about 312,000 U.S. dollars), it said.

Traffickers Wei Hai and Chen Qianggui were sentenced to life in prison while the other 16 were handed prison terms ranging from seven to 15 years.

In a case tried in Kashgar, five locals were sentenced to eight to 10 years in prison after being arrested on the border between Afghanistan and Tajikistan while attempting to join the East Turkestan Islamic Movement and Taliban terrorist groups.

The group often gathered together to read books on religious extremism, watch videos featuring violent terrorism and conspire to migrate to other countries to join jihad, the local court found.