Who are the Uyghur people and why do they face oppression by China?
China has been accused of oppressing and breaching the human rights of the Uyghur people in its western Xinjiang province.
There have been widespread reports of Uyghur people being held against their will in “re-education” centres, undergoing forced contraception and being subjected to a range of other restrictions.
China says the claims are “baseless” and have repeatedly denied any mistreatment of Uyghurs, saying they live in “peace and harmony”.
But who are the Uyghurs – pronounced “wee-gers” – and why might the Chinese state allegedly be targeting them?
Uyghurs are predominantly Muslim
Who are the Uyghur people?
The Uyghurs are a group of people who live mostly in the Xinjiang area of China.
They have been living there for at least several hundred years and there is good evidence that they may have lived there in some form for several thousand years.
They are generally regarded as a Turkic people, which means they speak a language related to Turkish and have ancestors who came from the traditional homeland of the Turks – north of central Asia.
But studies of their genetic make-up suggest that they also have ancestors who came from other parts of the world, with European DNA mixed with Chinese, south Asian, Siberian, and central Asian.
There are reports Uyghur people are being held in ‘re-education’ centres
What have the Chinese been accused of?
China has been accused of interning one million Uyghurs in “re-education” centres in Xinjiang.
In 2019, leaked documents emerged that contradicted Chinese government claims that the detention camps were voluntary job training centres.
The classified papers appeared to confirm what former detainees had been saying, that the camps were centres for forced ideological and behavioural re-education, or brainwashing.
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Drone video of alleged Uyghur prisoners
The Chinese government has been accused of forcing Uyghur women and member of other minorities to take part in birth control as part of a campaign to curb its Muslim population.
Footage has emerged over the last few years purporting to show hundreds of blindfolded and shackled prisoners – who were thought to be from the Uyghur population – being marched by guards in the Xinjiang city of Korla.
Sky News has also found evidence of children of exiled Uyghurs going missing in Xinjiang.
Protesters hold flags in support of the Uyghurs in Hong Kong
Why might the Chinese oppress the Uyghurs?
Xinjiang, where an estimated 80% of China’s Uyghurs are said to live, is China’s most western province.
It is a politically sensitive region – surrounded by eight other countries.
As the home of a significant proportion of the Silk Road, it has long been used as a thoroughfare along which goods from China have travelled.
Some, possibly most, Uyghurs do not accept that Xinjiang is part of China, citing the evidence that Uyghur people lived in the area before Chinese Han and Tang dynasties set up protectorates.
Xinjiang, as it is now, came under Chinese Qing dynasty rule in the 18th century, but there have been many times in its history when it was not under Chinese control.
In modern times, China has been increasing the number of non-Uyghurs in Xinjiang, so the proportion of Uyghurs in the region is declining.
Some Uyghurs resent that they are becoming, in their view, increasingly marginalised in the land where they have lived for centuries.
Uyghurs are a Turkic people, which means they speak a language related to Turkish
What unites the Uyghur people?
The Uyghurs are predominantly Muslim and have been for at least several hundred years.
But they have a rich and complex cultural history, stretching back millennia, with archaeological sites in Xinjiang showing that many in the past adhered to Buddhist beliefs, as well as those of other religions which now have relatively few followers.
A scene in the Bezeklik caves in Xinjiang from the 9th century showing people from many origins
Artworks discovered in caves in Xinjiang were made by Buddhist devotees who are believed to have been among some of the ancestors of modern Uyghur people.
They show the diversity of the society at the time, with images dating from the fifth to 14th centuries of Indians, Persians, Chinese and even some resembling Europeans on the cave walls.
Uyghurs are also united by a common language, which is related to Turkish, and by a shared culture of music, dance, food and other traditions.
The Uyghurs home in Xinjiang province is a politically sensitive region
How long have Uyghurs been in Xinjiang?
The oldest known inhabitants of the Tarim basin, a part of Xinjiang, are the Tarim mummies.
The mummified remains have European features and it has been claimed that the people spoke a language related to European Celtic. They lived about 3,800 years ago.
But there have been many influxes of people since then.
A 3,800-year-old mummified body found on the edge of the Tarim basin in Xinjiang, which is said to have European and other features
One of the key factors that has influenced who lives in the area is the presence of the Silk Road – the main worldwide trade route from Roman to Medieval times – through Xinjiang along which travelled goods and people.
Some Chinese experts argue that Uyghur people arrived in Xinjiang around the eighth and ninth centuries after the fall of a society further north called the Uyghur Khaganate.
Other experts, however, say that those arrivals were just one of the many waves of immigration into the area, and the modern Uyghur population reflects those past movements of people.
This article was originally published in 2020.
The biggest city in the Sahel has been ransacked and left in ruins.
War erupted in Sudan’s capital Khartoum in April 2023 and sent millions searching for safety.
The city was quickly captured by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) after a power struggle with the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) for total control.
At least 61,000 people were killed from the fighting and siege conditions in Khartoum state alone.
Thousands more were maimed and many remain missing.
The RSF fled Khartoum’s neighbourhoods in caravans carrying the city’s looted treasures as the army closed in and recaptured it after two years of occupation.
The empty streets they left behind are lined with charred, bullet-ridden buildings and robbed store fronts.
The once shiny skyscrapers built along the confluence of the River Nile are now husks of blackened steel.
The neighbourhoods are skeletal. Generational homes are deserted and hollow.
Damage from fighting around Khartoum
Trenches snake the streets where copper electric cables were ripped out of the ground and pulled out of lampposts now overridden with weeds.
The majority of the 13 million people displaced by this war fled Khartoum. Many left in a rush, assuming it would only take a few weeks for peace to be restored.
My parents were among those millions and in the midst of the abandoned, looted homes is the house where I grew up.
Yousra Elbagir’s family home was left in ruins by RSF troops
Yousra said it was likely a bomb had previously fallen nearby and shaken the house at its base
A shell of a home
I have to strain my eyes to see the turn to my house. All the usual markers are gone. There are no gatherings of young people drinking coffee with tea ladies in the leafy shade – just gaping billboard frames that once held up advertisements behind cars of courting couples parked by the Nile.
Our garden is both overgrown and dried to death.
The mango, lemon and jasmine trees carefully planted by my mother and brother have withered.
Structural damage to the outside of the home
The Bougainvillea has reached over the pathway and blocked off the main entrance. We go through the small black side door.
Our family car is no longer in the garage, forcing us to walk around it.
It was stolen shortly after my parents evacuated.
The two chairs my mum and dad would sit at the centre of the front lawn are still there, but surrounded by thorny weeds and twisted, bleached vines.
How the home looked before Sudan’s war
And how it looks now
The neighbour’s once lush garden is barren too.
Their tall palm trees at the front of the house have been beheaded – rounding off into a greyish stump instead of lush fronds.
Read more:
How recaptured palace is a significant sign of return to order
Sudan’s paramilitary chief announces rival government
Everyone in Khartoum is coming back to a game of Russian roulette. Searching out their houses to confirm suspicions of whether it was blasted, burned or punctured with bullets.
Many homes were looted and bruised by nearby combat but some are still standing. Others have been completely destroyed.
How the home looked before the war
And how it looks now
The outside of our house looks smooth from the street but has a crack in the base of the front wall visible from up close.
It is likely a bomb fell nearby and shook the house at its base – a reminder of the airstrikes and shelling that my parents and their neighbours fled.
Inside, the damage is choking.
Most of the furniture has been taken except a few lone couches.
The carpets and curtains have been stripped. The electrical panels and wiring pulled out. The appliances, dishes, glasses and spices snatched from the kitchens.
Yousra shows her mother pictures found in the home
The walls are bare apart from the few items they decided to spare. Ceilings have been punctured and cushions torn open in their hunt for hidden gold.
The walls are marked with the names of RSF troops that came in and out of this house like it was their own.
The home that has been the centre of our life in Sudan is a shell.
Sudan’s war has left the country fractured
Glimmers of hope
The picture of sheer wreckage settles and signs of familiarity come into focus.
A family photo album that is 20 years old.
The rocking chair my mother cradled me and my sister in. My university certificate.
Yousra finds her university certificate in the wreckage
Celebratory snaps of my siblings’ weddings. Books my brother has had since the early nineties.
The painting above my bed that I have pined over during the two years – custom-made and gifted to me for my 24th birthday and signed by my family on the back.
There are signs of dirt and damage on all these items our looters discarded but it is enough.
Yousra’s parents pictured at home before they fled Khartoum
Evidence of material destruction but a reminder of what we can hope will endure.
The spirit of the people that gathered to laugh, cry and break bread in these rooms.
A portrait of Yousra’s grandmother damaged by RSF troops
The hospitality and warmth of a Sudanese home with an open door.
The community and sense of togetherness that can never truly be robbed.
What remains in our hearts and our city is a sign of what will get us through.
World
Unpredictable and disruptive or canny and persistent – what exactly is Donald Trump’s foreign policy?
So, after 100 days of Donald Trump the big question for me remains – does the US president have a coherent foreign policy or is he just winging it?
Let’s take his attitude to the war in Ukraine – here “inconsistent” is perhaps the best description.
Back in February, he and vice president JD Vance humiliated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy by shouting at him in the Oval Office.
A few days later, I spoke to Mr Zelenskyy in person when he confided to me that maybe he would have to step down if NATO could guarantee Ukraine membership – a man who perhaps sensed he could never win against a hostile Mr Trump.
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Sky News meets Zelenskyy: The key moments
Yet, fast-forward to last weekend in Rome, and an iconic picture of the two men in close conversation at the Pope’s funeral.
This time round, it is Russian President Vladimir Putin on the receiving end of the presidential anger, blaming him for the fact that “too many people are dying!”
Trump and Zelenskyy talk in the Vatican. Pic: AP
To Trump’s supporters, this is the smart negotiator, constantly repositioning himself as new information comes in, prior to pulling off a spectacular deal.
To his many detractors, it indicates a dangerous incoherence that is replicated in other key areas, including tariffs as well as his relationship with his allies in Europe and his foes in Beijing.
Trump 100: Read more
Tariffs, DOGE, diet coke: 100 days in 100 words
Trump’s awkward reckoning 100 days in
How an immigration crackdown has changed lives
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
Flexible or fallible; in control or all at sea? In the fast and furious world of Donald Trump, it’s almost impossible to call.
The only constants are his unwavering self-belief, or as the man himself says: “I aim very high, and then I just keep pushing and pushing and pushing to get what I’m after.”
We shall see.
A paramedic in Gaza who was detained for more than five weeks following an Israeli attack that killed 15 aid workers has been released, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) said.
Asaad al Nsasrah was one of 17 aid workers who were attacked in Tel al Sultan in southern Gaza by Israeli forces on 23 March.
Asaad was one of two first responders who survived – the other 15 were killed.
He was initially thought to be missing, as his body was not among the dead. It was not until 13 April, three weeks after the attack, that Israel confirmed Asaad was alive and in Israeli detention.
The PRCS announced Asaad’s release on X and shared a video of him reuniting with colleagues.
Sky News has seen images showing Asaad, among other released Palestinians, in a grey tracksuit at al Amal Hospital in Khan Younis, where he is undergoing medical examination, according to the PRCS.
Sky News investigated how the attack on the aid workers unfolded – unearthing new evidence earlier this month contradicting Israel’s official account of what happened.
The Israeli military later released the findings of its own investigation into the incident, saying it had dismissed a deputy commander for providing an “inaccurate report”.
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How two hours of terror unfolded
The PRCS claimed the Israeli military’s investigation was “full of lies”.
Asaad’s voice can be heard in a video, initially published by the New York Times, that shows the moments leading up to the attack on the aid workers.
The video was discovered on Rifaat Radwaan’s phone, which was found on his body by rescue workers five days after the attack.
Among those killed were one UN worker, eight paramedics from the PRCS and six first responders from Civil Defence – the official fire and rescue service of Gaza’s Hamas-led government.
The Data and Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open source information. Through multimedia storytelling we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.
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