Starvation fears as China imposes secret lockdown on Xinjiang, home of the Uyghurs

China has quietly imposed one of its strictest lockdowns, pushing people to the brink of starvation in a region where the Communist Party is accused of carrying out genocide among the Muslim population.

Scores of people have been confined to their homes in Xinjiang, often without food and medicine, since early August, according to testimonies shared online that have been quickly deleted by censors.

China is accused of genocide in Xinjiang for locking up more than a million ethnic Uyghur Muslims in internment camps.

Members of the Uyghur diaspora told The Telegraph they were facing an information blackout on the current draconian lockdown, and were battling censors on Chinese social media to collect footage taken inside the region to alert the west to the plight of the people of Xinjiang.

The lockdown has not been confirmed by authorities, but videos show malnourished youths and empty fridges, raising renewed alarm among rights activists and Xinjiang people living abroad.

In one post circulated widely, a resident in Ili, a region of 4.5 million people in northern Xinjiang, said his 17-month-old child had died after being refused medical care due to the lockdown.

In another video posted and later censored on Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, a man said he had nothing left to feed to his three young children, who were sitting around a table. In yet another video shared widely, a teenage girl told her mother her stomach hurt from hunger.

While the videos could not be independently verified, the scenes were reminiscent of lockdowns elsewhere in China.

The central government upholds one of the world's most severe zero-Covid policies, which at times has seen people left without food, medical care and even access to shelter during natural disasters.

During a two-month lockdown in Shanghai earlier this year, residents complained of going hungry amid inconsistent food deliveries organised by their residential communities and local government.

But in Xinjiang, home to about 12 million Uyghurs and other mostly Muslim ethnic minorities, concerns about the lockdown conditions are compounded by worries about Beijing’s campaign of suppression.

The United Nations said this month China may be committing crimes against humanity in the region, including through the arbitrary detention of at least one million Uyghurs.

“During this lockdown, [authorities] locked up entire families in their homes … and even welded the doors shut,” Zumret Dawut, a Uyghur activist and internment camp survivor who currently lives in the US, told The Telegraph.

“There is no emergency preparedness, even in the case of a fire or an earthquake, or in a flood as recently occurred in the city of Kashgar, there will be no help for the locked-up residents.

“This situation has continued for more than 50 days now. People with chronic ailments and vulnerable populations such as elderly people and infants and children suffer the most,” Ms Dawut added.

From her home in the state of Virginia, she has been monitoring videos posted by people inside Xinjiang on Douyin and reposted them to Facebook and Twitter before Chinese censors could remove them.

In some videos, small groups of Uyghurs were shown confronting local officials over the lack of food supplies, in a rare show of dissent in the suppressed region.

While Ili authorities have not admitted to an official lockdown, the prefecture’s deputy governor, Liu Qinghua, apologised for failures in the access to medical services, saying they reflected “many shortcomings and weaknesses of the work of the local authorities.”

“The Communist Party committee and government want to express their deepest apology for the disruption of life caused to all ethnicities,” Mr Liu said.

Officials did not directly address starvation complaints but promised to ensure enough food supplies and organise squads to send food to locked-down families.

Police in Yining, a county in the Ili prefecture, on Sunday said they arrested four internet users over spreading “rumours” about the Covid lockdown.

Authorities also ordered censors to flood social media with innocuous posts about life in Xinjiang – including food and tourism – in order to drown out complaints about the lockdown, according to a leaked directive published by China Digital Times.

The Xinjiang Covid outbreak is relatively minor, with only 28 new infections reported on Monday. Across the country, authorities reported a total of 1,094 new locally transmitted infections on Monday.

Chinese officials cannot afford new major Covid outbreaks, especially ahead of a major political congress in mid-October during which China’s president, Xi Jinping, is expected to begin a third term in office.

Elsewhere in China, officials in the southern city of Guiyang were punished this week for failing to contain the virus from spreading to certain districts. Guiyang residents had previously complained online of food shortages amid the lockdown.

While there have been no Covid-related deaths reported in recent weeks in China, Radio Free Asia, a news service funded by the US government, quoted unnamed Xinjiang officials as saying as many as a dozen Ili residents died from starvation or lack of access to medicine.

“The entire Uyghur diaspora is shaken by the extreme zero-Covid policy in Ghulja,” said Gulruy Asqar, a Uyghur activist in exile, referring to the Uyghur name of Yining County.

“We are so, so worried about our family members. They might be starving too.”