Pakistanis distressed as Uighur wives vanish in China dragnet

Every autumn on the mountainous Karakoram Highway, groups of Pakistani merchants living in China’s far west would wave goodbye to their Chinese wives and cross the border to spend winter in their home country.

As the snow piled high, the men would stay in touch with their families by phone.

But last year many of their calls suddenly went unanswered. Their families, they learned, had disappeared into a growing network of shadowy “re-education centres” that have swept up the Xinjiang region’s Uighur Muslim minority over fears of Islamic militancy crossing the border.

“My wife and kids were taken away by the Chinese authorities in March last year and I haven’t heard from them since,” said Iqbal, a Pakistani businessman.

Last July, he headed to China to find them, but was turned away at the border. Authorities said “the government was taking care of my kids”, he told AFP.

China’s foreign ministry said that the “two sides are maintaining communication about problems related to interactions between both countries’ people”, while Pakistan’s said the issue was being “actively discussed with the government of China”.

In recent years, China has heavily pushed its relationship with Pakistan, investing tens of billions of dollars in infrastructure projects of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor in the country.

But China has had difficulty reconciling its desire for development with fears that Uighur separatists will import violence from Pakistan. AFP

ISLAMABAD:

AFP FILE Pakistani nationals at the Khunjerab Pass, the world's highest paved border crossing, near the PakistanChina border.