Uighur children are victims of the anti-terrorism campaign in China

In a quiet street in the ancient city of Kashgar, in the Silk Road, a house is empty, padlocked from the outside, the family who lived there died

. three months later, the mother was also taken away by the authorities. They allegedly shared Islamic extremist content on their mobile phones, family members said.

Despite protests from loved ones, two of their children, ages 18 and 15, were arrested and their two youngest aged seven and nine a state wellness center. "The grandfather even cried, but the authorities did not let him keep his grandchildren," recalls an acquaintance

. According to the Times, Uyghurs surveyed in China and abroad by Uyghurs

While the Trump administration struggles to reunite migrants and their children forcibly separated at the US border, China has separated families on a larger scale. rapid intensification of the security campaign. The campaign has locked the region, barring Uyghurs from traveling and subjecting them to high-tech digital and physical surveillance.

Since 2016, China has started imprisoning Uighurs in extra-legal detention centers in the name of fighting terrorism. China denies that such centers exist, rejecting efforts by Western countries to discuss Xinjiang, according to two diplomats.

In April, Laura Stone, Acting Assistant Deputy Secretary of the United States for Asian Affairs of the United States East and Pacific states that the number of Uighurs detained was "at least tens of thousands"

. It is becoming increasingly common for whole families to be separated from their children. Young children are then sent to "guidance centers for the protection of children", while older children are sometimes sent to state-run professional institutes, according to residents. of Urumqi, capital of Xinjiang, and Kashgar

. The child will be sent to a re-education center for "special children," said a former teacher in one of the rehab centers. "The child is forbidden to go to school with normal children because parents have a political problem."

In early 2017, Xinjiang began building dozens of social centers, according to calls for public offerings. media reports. The orphanages are built under a new "Five Guarantees" policy launched in 2017 that aims to provide orphans with state-funded care up to the age of 18 years.

Centers are usually mbadive even when they are located in remote areas. In Yumin County, which has a population of 50,000, the authorities recently inaugurated a 3,000-square-meter center for a total cost of R9.8 million ($ 1.5 million). According to local media reports, a Kashgar district built 18 new orphanages in 2017.

Not all children are sent to social welfare centers , according to Xinjiang residents. The rapid escalation of detentions left local governments unprepared to handle the thousands of children in need of care. Some boards of directors in existing public schools. Older children can be sent to vocational schools, a practice that has existed in China, even on a very small scale, for years.

"There has been a big readjustment in the education system because of training schools" a retired government official in Kashgar nicknamed Dong, using a common euphemism for detention centers. "[The children] eat, sleep and learn at the expense of the government, although I do not advise you to send your own children there.

Mutelip (a pseudonym), a Uyghur living in the United States, had two cousins ​​aged 10 and 12 taken by government officials and sent to an unspecified school on a stock exchange. last April. His grandparents cut off communication with him, fearing to be punished for contacting someone overseas.

"My grandparents tried to take [my cousins] but the government did not allow it. Another uncle was sent to the detention camps after protesting [to the cousins being taken away]"Mutelip said, according to his calculations, 86 parents were sent to prison or re-education camps across the region.

detentions increase, Uyghur parents living outside China face an impossible choice: return home and be imprisoned or stay abroad, unable to determine what happened to their children in Xinjiang. digital and physical makes contact with family and friends almost impossible.

"I dream of being with my daughter. Then I'm dreaming in Urumqi and the police come to my house and I'm afraid they'll take me to jail, "said Tahir Imin, a businessman who left a daughter of seven years in 2016 to pursue a master's degree in Israel He is now a political refugee in the United States

Last June, Mr. Imin's wife filed for divorce after repeatedly harbaded by local security forces in Urumqi for his relations with Mr. Imin

Earlier this year, friends in Xinjiang told Mr. Imin that his extended family had been detained or imprisoned but they did not provide details lest their conversations be monitored and they be punished.Mr. Imin is not clear what happened to his daughter. to cut off contact in January, her daughter told her to stop contacting her family.

The words co upset deeply, but he believes that they were sent to him under psychological pressure and restraint. "She loves me a lot," said Mr. Imin. "She knows everything."

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