Uighur exile describes life in China

China is being accused of carrying out an increasingly brutal crackdown on millions of Muslim minority people known as Uighurs in the north-west of the country.According to the US State Department, security forces have detained tens of thousand of Uighurs, separating children from their parents, and subjecting them to forced “re-education”.

Enver Tohti is one Uighur exile living in London. He describes life in China before he “knew [he] had to leave” in 1994.

(Photo: A Uighur woman walks by the closed Islamic school in Xinjiang. Credit: Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)