Source: Direct Reports from China
Date: July 7, 2018
Over two hundred Muslim Uyghur children, from seven to seventeen-years-old, ended up in the welfare system of the Xinjiang’s city of Bole because their parents and relatives have been arrested and sent to the so-called “re-education camps.” Thirty teachers are responsible for the care of the children.
Bitter Winter interviewed an employee of a welfare institution in Bole that takes care of the “orphaned” children, who stated that all of the children are of Uyghur ethnic minority from Bole whose family members have been Muslim for generations. Their parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles have all been taken away by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) government; some have received sentences of five years or more, and others have been put into re-education and conversion centers to undergo forced intense indoctrination.
“There are a lot more kids like these, but we don’t have room for them. We can’t take any more in,” said the employee. According to him, the children are suffering from emotional instability, and some are displaying disturbing tendencies, like trying to swallow fish bones or drink laundry detergent to kill themselves. Some children have asked if the welfare institution was a prison. This welfare center was built this March, and immediately children started being sent there.
The CCP government has been carrying out the devastating ethnic and religious persecution of in Xinjiang and other regions with the aim to “sinicize” religions – adapt them to socialist needs. According to some estimations, around one million Muslims have been arrested or sent to camps. Experts call the Xinjiang re-education camps a major human rights violation that causes increasing concerns.