Masses of ethnic Kazakhs have reportedly been rounded up in China’s northwest Xinjiang Province, as part of the detention of Muslims by Chinese authorities.
Grandmother Khalida Aqitqan spends most of her time desperately trying to find her three sons, missing since they were detained in China five years ago.
“I haven’t spoken to my sons, their wives or my grandchildren since 2016,” she tells SBS Dateline. “No news at all. I don't know if they are dead or alive.”
Khalida Aqitqan is desperate to find her three sons, detained in China five years ago.
Four days a week, Khalida visits the Chinese consulate in the Kazakh city of Almaty to demand the release of her loved ones. She believes they’ve been detained in one of China’s “re-education camps”.
Khalida is joined by other women looking for sons or husbands who’ve also been detained in China for practising their religion.
“Are praying and attending Friday prayers a crime?” she cries. “It's a Kazakh tradition and a Muslim’s duty.”
The Kazakh government has previously secured some releases, though many are still missing and uncontactable.
Erbol Datulbek is a Kazakh human rights worker who’s spent the past 12 years trying to free Kazakhs from Chinese detention.
From his extensive research, Erbol knows of 20,000 Kazakhs who’ve either been detained, jailed or placed under house arrest just for being Muslim.
But that’s only those with relatives who’ve sought their release.
The real figure is believed to be tens of thousands more.
"There are those who have been put under house arrest, have had their passports seized in China and those separated from their families, " Datulbek says.
"We don’t know if they are alive or not now. Some of them have been sentenced to many years. We don’t know about them. But their relatives here are looking for them."
Erbol Datulbek has spent the past 12 years trying to free Kazakhs from detention in China.
Using satellite imaging, she was able to identify a number of new facilities erected by the Chinese government.
“They were built in this very permanent way, with thick concrete walls, and they were purpose-built as prisons,” she says.
Her team identified 348 locations believed to be part of the current detention program. She estimates more than a million people are being held in these facilities, plagued by rampant reports of abuse.
“We've heard a lot of accounts of really appalling treatment within these camps”, Killing says.
“Evidence of beatings, evidence of a mistreatment that amounted to torture, people held in solitary confinement.”
Further details have emerged that large numbers of Muslims have allegedly endured sexual assault by Chinese authorities.
At great risk, a Chinese blogger used a secret camera to film a network of newly-built detention centres.
It shows a series of guard towers and surveillance cameras monitoring the movements of ethnic Kazakhs and Uyghurs both inside and beyond the compounds.
A still image of a Chinese blogger's video showing a detention centre in China.
