Uighur Kids Find A Haven At Boarding School In Turkey

[ZeEa5KPul]

Relax, man. Have some Chinese snacks:

Why would I eat Turks? No, thanks.

 

[bsruzm]

Why would I eat Turks? No, thanks.

You know what?

 

[Baba_Yaga]

Relax, man. Have some Chinese snacks:

It might seem disgusting to us, but there's nothing wrong in eating insects, they are consumed in several parts of the world. If you go to a Mexican market, like every 3rd or 4th shop is selling insects, they are a part of their diet. Many scientists suggest that insect eating will be the only way to provide enough protein for a growing population in the future. As long as the Chinese stay away from stuff like bat, civet, pangolin etc which harbour viruses that can infect humans, its good enough. Basically, the trick is not to eat mammals apart from the ones that are usually consumed for thousands of years - pork, beef, lamb etc. Insects, reptiles are all ok, they are too different from us, so a virus that infects them has a very low chance of passing to humans. Birds on the other hand are more tricky, a virus can pass from chicken or duck to human, so avoid eating weird birds as well.

Also its not just about eating. If Chinese simply segregated the meats - like bat in one section, pangolin in another etc, even then we might have escaped this pandemic, but Chinese wet markets are just pathetic and filthy. Like a hundred different exotic species of all sorts, all out in the open, their carcasses lying a few centimetres from each other. It's a nuclear bomb waiting to go off. With corona we got lucky, only 2% death rate, next time might be 20%.

 

[OIO]

World
'Somewhere Like Home': Uighur Kids Find A Haven At Boarding School In Turkey
March 15, 20208:47 AM ET

Joanna Kakissis

Ten-year-old Nurzat (right) and his friends, brothers Abdulla (left), 11, and Muhammet (center), 10, look out the window of their dormitory room at a boarding school in Istanbul, Turkey. The boys are all missing their parents, who are believed to be in prison camps in China.

Nicole Tung for NPR
Ten-year-old Nurzat (right) and his friends, brothers Abdulla (left), 11, and Muhammet (center), 10, look out the window of their dormitory room at a boarding school in Istanbul, Turkey. The boys are all missing their parents, who are believed to be in prison camps in China.

Nicole Tung for NPR
Ten-year-old Nurzat climbs out of his bunk bed, tiptoes across the room that he shares with three other boys and opens his locker.

It holds his most prized possession: a framed photograph of his father.

His dad has a thick mustache and wears a gray polo shirt and thick glasses. Nurzat, a wispy boy with huge brown eyes and a hushed voice, says he can almost hear him laughing.

"I miss you so much," he tells the photo. "When are you coming?"

Nurzat hasn't talked to his family in three years, ever since Chinese police arrested his father in western China's Xinjiang region.

As Uighurs, a predominantly Muslim ethnic group, Nurzat's family has faced abuse, imprisonment and discrimination in China for years. More than 1 million Uighurs have been forced into so-called reeducation camps since 2017. Human rights groups say they're targeted for their religion. At these camps, Uighurs are pressured to renounce Islam and pledge allegiance to the Chinese Communist Party.

Students write on a whiteboard during English language class at the boarding school.

Nicole Tung for NPR
Students write on a whiteboard during English language class at the boarding school.

Nicole Tung for NPR
In the past six years, thousands have sought refuge and settled in Turkey, according to Uighur leaders there. Among them are hundreds of children — estimates vary between 350 and 700 — whose parents have disappeared in China.

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Most of the children arrived in Turkey with at least one parent but have ended up on their own. The parents were arrested after returning to China to try to get the rest of the family out or to close up businesses. A handful of children, like Nurzat, were sent out of China with family acquaintances.

Without their parents, many of the children ended up living with other Uighur families or distant relatives, who struggled to support them. Some of the children, including Nurzat, were moved in late 2017 by Uighur community leaders in Turkey to a sand-colored boarding school called Oku Uygur (Read Uighur) in the sunny seaside town of Selimpasa, west of Istanbul.

Nurzat has heard grown-ups refer to his school as an orphanage.


The Disappeared: China's Draconian Imprisonment Of A People
Reporter's Notebook: Uighurs Held For 'Extremist Thoughts' They Didn't Know They Had
"I'm not an orphan," he says.

A lonely journey

By 8 a.m., the dormitory is buzzing. Boys, ages 9 to 16, stuff their backpacks with books and head to a full day of classes — first at a nearby Turkish public school, then back at the boarding school, finishing at dinnertime.

More than 30 boys live in the dorm, four to a room, sharing two bunk beds, a study table and bookshelves lined with Uighur-language books, Turkish dictionaries and the Quran. A separate dormitory for girls will be finished later this year.

Mohammad Izzatullah, 29, is a teacher and counselor at the boarding school, where students call him "Big Brother" and "Uncle." Nicole Tung for NPR hide caption

toggle caption Nicole Tung for NPR
"The boys usually don't hear good news about their missing parents, so they cope by isolating themselves and shutting down," says Mohammad Izzatullah, 29, a Uighur religion tutor who lives at the school and serves informally as a guardian for the students. "I try to keep them busy. It's better for their mental health."

Some of the boys call Izzatullah "Big Brother" or "Uncle." They hug him and sometimes cry into his shirt. He says they understand that Chinese authorities have taken away their parents and that's why their parents can't talk to them. But they still want to know: Will we ever see them again?

"I don't know how to answer that," he says. "So I tell them my own family is missing and that I haven't seen them in five years."


The Disappeared: China's Draconian Imprisonment Of A People
Families Of The Disappeared: A Search For Loved Ones Held In China's Xinjiang Region
Izzatullah spends extra time with Nurzat, who hasn't seen his parents since he left China in 2014, when he was 5. To save their son from a massive crackdown on Uighurs in Xinjiang, his parents sent him to Egypt with family friends. His mom and dad looked sad as they said goodbye, Nurzat remembers, and told him the Han Chinese did not like Uighurs. They promised they would join him soon and bring his younger siblings.

"I remember my mother telling me to study hard," he says. "I didn't understand where I was going."

Nurzat stayed with relatives who ran a Uighur restaurant in downtown Cairo. At first, he says, he was so lonely that his stomach hurt every day. He called his parents on WeChat, the Chinese social media app, telling them he wanted to come home. After a few months, though, he learned Arabic well enough to make friends at school. The stomachaches went away. He started to relax.

"A couple of other Uighur kids even came to my school, and we became friends," he says.

Students watch a soccer game before the start of classes at Oku Uygur boarding school on the outskirts of Istanbul. The school cares for dozens of children, including some whose parents have been imprisoned in Xinjiang, in China's northwest. Nicole Tung for NPR hide caption

toggle caption Nicole Tung for NPR
Students watch a soccer game before the start of classes at Oku Uygur boarding school on the outskirts of Istanbul. The school cares for dozens of children, including some whose parents have been imprisoned in Xinjiang, in China's northwest.

Nicole Tung for NPR
Everything changed one chilly night, when he was up late watching Tom and Jerry cartoons in his pajamas.

"My relatives ran into the house and said we had to pack our clothes right away," Nurzat says. "They said the police had come to my uncle's restaurant and arrested Uighurs working and eating there. My uncle and two others escaped through the back door."

By then, Nurzat was 7. For a few weeks, he and the adults hid out with an Egyptian friend. A few weeks later, he flew to Turkey with an adult relative he calls "Big Sister."


World
'I Thought It Would Be Safe': Uighurs In Turkey Now Fear China's Long Arm
"My uncle told me that all Uighurs go to Turkey and that we will be safe there," he says.

They arrived in Istanbul in early 2017, settling in the blue-collar Istanbul neighborhood of Zeytinburnu. Rows of smog-colored concrete apartment blocks surround bright produce markets bursting with oranges and pomegranates. Junk collectors push wheelbarrows on the narrow roads, shouting for spare parts, past grandfathers on plastic stools sipping coffee and gossiping.

The neighborhood has long been a magnet for ethnic minorities and immigrants. Armenians, Greeks and Bulgarians lived here in the 1950s. Today, it's Kazakhs, Uzbeks and Uighurs.

A student opens a window inside the school's mosque before the start of afternoon prayers. The school was built in 2017 and originally was expected to be a private institution where parents would pay tuition. The school's founders changed its mission after they noticed increasing numbers of Uighur children were stranded in Turkey without their parents. Nicole Tung for NPR hide caption

toggle caption Nicole Tung for NPR
A student opens a window inside the school's mosque before the start of afternoon prayers. The school was built in 2017 and originally was expected to be a private institution where parents would pay tuition. The school's founders changed its mission after they noticed increasing numbers of Uighur children were stranded in Turkey without their parents.

Nicole Tung for NPR
Nurzat remembers how shocked he was to see so many Uighurs. It was almost as if he were back in his hometown of Hotan, passing bakeries selling his favorite crispy flatbread and restaurants serving the meaty pilafs and lamb stews he loves so much. He called his parents to tell them that they might like it here.

One night after dinner, he overheard the grownups whispering about his father. The Chinese police had arrested him.

"I went to my room and started crying," he says. "I cried until I fell asleep."

He called his mother on WeChat. She told him the family was trying to get his father out of jail. Then she stopped responding to his messages. There was only silence. She disappeared, along with his three siblings.

Nurzat's stomachaches returned. His loneliness turned into confusion.

"I wrote a letter to my mom," Nurzat says. "But I didn't know where to send it, so I threw it away."

"Somewhere like home"

The Oku Uygur boarding school grew out of the Uighur-language classes that its founder, Habibulla Kuseni, 45, previously ran from his apartment in Selimpasa. Kuseni, a Uighur who used to run a tutoring center in the Xinjiang capital of Urumqi, began to feel unsafe in China not long after clashes in 2009 between Uighurs and Han Chinese left scores dead and hundreds injured. Chinese authorities blamed the riots on Uighurs and began arresting them.

Kalbigul teaches English to Uighur students at the school. "We want them to know there is an entire community behind them," she says. Nicole Tung for NPR hide caption

toggle caption Nicole Tung for NPR
Kalbigul teaches English to Uighur students at the school. "We want them to know there is an entire community behind them," she says.

Nicole Tung for NPR
"I felt like the Chinese authorities had evil plans for us, like they want to destroy our entire community," he says. "I decided to move to a place where I could work for the interest of my people."

Kuseni and his family arrived in Turkey in 2012. They settled in Selimpasa and became Turkish citizens. As more Uighur families arrived in Turkey, he started teaching Uighur language — which resembles Turkish — and history to children. Fifteen kids turned into 30, then 60, then more. Uighur friends started a fundraising campaign to build a standalone school to prepare Uighur students for university. Tuition was supposed to be about $150 per month.

"We agreed to make exceptions for students who couldn't afford the tuition," he says, "because the whole point of the school was to make sure Uighur children never forget their language and culture."

In 2017, he noticed an increasing number of Uighur children like Nurzat, stranded in Turkey without parents.

A boy plays with marbles in the courtyard of the boarding school. About 170 students attend courses including Uighur language and history, Quranic studies, art, science, computers and English. Nicole Tung for NPR hide caption

toggle caption Nicole Tung for NPR
A boy plays with marbles in the courtyard of the boarding school. About 170 students attend courses including Uighur language and history, Quranic studies, art, science, computers and English.

Nicole Tung for NPR
"I kept meeting students who said they didn't have enough to eat," he says. "They slept on the floor instead of a bed."

Kuseni decided to get rid of the tuition requirement and use the new school to house the most disadvantaged Uighur children. The school opened in late 2017, with permission from the Turkish state and financed by donations from the Uighur diaspora in the Middle East and Europe.

Kuseni says he and his administrators selected the 30-plus boarding students by interviewing their guardians and checking out their family histories to find out where the children's parents are. He recruited 15 teachers by advertising through local Uighur-language media and word-of-mouth, hiring those with college degrees and classroom experience. The teachers, who are all Uighur, are paid between $334 and $500 per month.

The school is supposed to help students keep their Uighur culture and traditions alive. Kuseni also doesn't shy away from telling them that China is to blame for separating them from their families and displacing them.

"We want them to know they belong to a family that's much bigger than the one they have lost," he says.

A boy prays inside the Oku Uygur boarding school's mosque. The Oku Uygur boarding school grew out of the Uighur-language classes that its founder, Habibulla Kuseni, previously ran from his apartment. Nicole Tung for NPR hide caption

toggle caption Nicole Tung for NPR
A boy prays inside the Oku Uygur boarding school's mosque. The Oku Uygur boarding school grew out of the Uighur-language classes that its founder, Habibulla Kuseni, previously ran from his apartment.

Nicole Tung for NPR
Classes are open to all Uighur children. About 170 attend courses in Uighur language and history, Quranic studies, as well as art, science, computers and English.

"We want them to know there is an entire community behind them," says Kalbigul, a tall, intense English teacher in her early 30s who declined to give her last name because she fears for her family in China.

Her intermediate English class is packed with teenagers.

"This house is uptown," they read aloud from an English workbook, before translating into Uighur. "It is in a green and quiet neighborhood."

She scans the room. Talking about homes and families sometimes makes the students choke up. After class, she tries to comfort them.

"I just say that if you miss your mom, you can come to my home and I can cook for you any dish you want," she says.

She can't bring herself to talk to children directly about family separation. She doesn't want the students to see her cry. Her own parents are missing in China.

"Speaking our language together makes the children feel like they are somewhere like home," says Arzigul, the school's Uighur language teacher. "It also makes them miss everything they have lost." Nicole Tung for NPR hide caption

toggle caption Nicole Tung for NPR
"Speaking our language together makes the children feel like they are somewhere like home," says Arzigul, the school's Uighur language teacher. "It also makes them miss everything they have lost."

Nicole Tung for NPR
"We don't have any contact with them," she says. "It's been two, three years, even we cannot call. We don't know if they are fine or what happened to them."

Down the hall, a room of 9- and 10-year-olds recite a Uighur alphabet song. Their teacher, a rosy-cheeked grandmother named Arzigul, sings with them. She also declines to give her last name because she has family in China.

"Speaking our language together makes the children feel like they are somewhere like home," she says. "It also makes them miss everything they have lost. ... Some of the children ask me, 'Do we have to say goodbye to our parents and our homeland forever?' "

She tries to cheer them up with jokes and funny faces. She gives them money and candy for the Eid holiday, just like their grandparents used to do back home.

"They know it's not the same," she says. Her eyes fill with tears.

"They really only have this school and God"

When the school celebrated Eid last year, Arzigul saw three little boys tucked into a corner, refusing food.

"They didn't want to eat anything, only a couple of bites of banana," she says. "They kept saying their family back home was cooking for them. I brought them some fruit and gave them some pocket money. But I cried because it seems like they really only have this school and God."

A student walks in the middle of the basketball court after classes. while other students play basketball and soccer nearby. Nicole Tung for NPR hide caption

toggle caption Nicole Tung for NPR
A student walks in the middle of the basketball court after classes. while other students play basketball and soccer nearby.

Nicole Tung for NPR
One of those boys was Nurzat. The other two were his closest friends, Abdulla and Muhammet, who are brothers.

After classes, the three boys play pickup soccer and basketball in the schoolyard. A younger girl wearing a headscarf, tutu and shiny white shoes runs around them. She's one of the lucky ones who lives in Turkey with her family, and she says her parents have told her to become friends with kids who don't, so they won't feel lonely.

When her mother and father arrive to take her home, the boys watch silently as the family walks away holding hands.

Abdulla, 11, is serious and stick-thin, with a thick black pompadour. Muhammet, 10, is freckled and chubby-cheeked. They grew up in Korla, the second-largest city in Xinjiang, and came to Turkey with their father four years ago. Their father left them in the Istanbul home of a woman from Korla and flew back to China to get the rest of the family.

"My brother and I spoke to him a lot on WeChat," Abdulla says. "But then he stopped answering our calls."

Their mother told them that their father had not forgotten them. The Chinese police had taken him away.

Friends Nurzat (bottom left) and brothers Abdulla (standing) and Muhammet (top) spend time in a dormitory room at the boarding school. Nicole Tung for NPR hide caption

toggle caption Nicole Tung for NPR
Friends Nurzat (bottom left) and brothers Abdulla (standing) and Muhammet (top) spend time in a dormitory room at the boarding school.

Nicole Tung for NPR
"Then Mom said she couldn't talk to us anymore either, because the police had come for her too," Abdulla says.

Being in a foreign country without a mom and dad, he says, feels like being crushed. Sometimes Abdulla feels as though he can't breathe. When he asks his teachers if they can help him find his parents, they always change the subject.

"They seem really busy," Abdulla says. "I don't want to bother them."

So he talks to his brother and Nurzat. The three boys sit together in the cafeteria, eating bowls of spicy spaghetti. Then, as the sun goes down, they hang out in Nurzat's room.

In a blend of Uighur and Turkish, they swap stories about their lost childhoods — secretly eating YumYum instant noodles with friends whose names they can no longer remember, playing with siblings now missing, running away from sheep on their grandparents' farms.

"I remember my grandfather going to slaughter the sheep so we could eat them," says Muhammet, cringing.

"I didn't like all that blood," says Nurzat, making the same pinched face.

But he adds: "That's when we were all together, the whole family."

Muhammet takes a book from the bookshelf in his dormitory room. He says he wants to grow up fast so he can hack computers to learn where his parents are being detained in China. Nicole Tung for NPR hide caption

toggle caption Nicole Tung for NPR
Muhammet takes a book from the bookshelf in his dormitory room. He says he wants to grow up fast so he can hack computers to learn where his parents are being detained in China.

Nicole Tung for NPR
Muhammet looks sad. He says he wants to grow up fast so he can learn to hack computers and find out where the Chinese authorities are keeping his parents.

Nurzat has even more formidable plans.

"When I get big, I'm going to become so strong that I'm going to beat up all the Chinese police and rescue my parents," he says, his voice rising. "And then, I'm going to make myself little again so I can grow up with them."

He hugs the framed photo of his father. Nurzat is in that photo, too — 4 years old, in oversized sunglasses and a bright-yellow shirt, smiling as he leans into his dad's soft belly.

Nurzat usually keeps his most prized possession in his locker. But tonight, he feels another stomachache coming on. He tucks the photo under his pillow.

This story is part of a series about Uighurs in Turkey. You can read and listen to part one, about Uighurs being detained in Turkey, here.

Samarjan Saidi contributed reporting from Selimpaşa, Turkey.

Glad to see they find a Haven outside China, wish they a bright future there.

 

[Indos]

Indonesian NGO, ACT, also try to help Uigyur life in Turkey through donation and scholarship for Hafiz (Remembering Quran), non formal education and universities students.

 

[Beast]

The Muslim Uighur people in concentration camps while these people make fun of them. Are the Kashmiris and Palestinians are next of your list of ridicule ?

https://www.voanews.com/extremism-watch/analysts-uighur-jihadis-syria-could-pose-threat

Another self denial. Don't use fake abuse of uighur as smokescreen to mask the fact many are recruited as jihadis fighting in Syria for turkey side.

 

[Indos]

Indonesian Vlogger went to Turkey to look condition of Uigyur there. Based on what she said, donations are needed to sustain Uigyur life there.

 

[Beast]

Indonesian NGO, ACT, also try to help Uigyur life in Turkey through donation and scholarship for Hafiz (Remembering Quran), non formal education and universities students.

Many of your money is channel into weapon for uighur jihadis fighting in Syria.

 

[Balamir]

There is very clear Chinese propaganda and support for Chinese expansion.

Imported from Turkey will MİLGEM corvettes in the mosque ablution room and asking the Pakistani government continues to ignore what has been done to the Muslim Uighurs in an autocratic country like China. Even India had reacted to China. We Turks in Turkey, we have to stand by the Uighur compatriots. There is no such thing as a Muslim union, it will not. But even the Turks will of course.

The Uighurs tried to forcibly uprooted from their roots in China free Çinçin to teaching in Turkey, they speak the language training they receive, living their faith.

 

[Ansu fati]

They are turks from central asia I am proud to see Turkey helping them it would be nice if they receive automatically citizenship it’s 100x better to have fellow turks as immigrants who won’t be brainwashed with separatism rather than ungrateful non-turkish origin migrants who are threat in the long-term

 

[ZeEa5KPul]

Indonesian NGO, ACT, also try to help Uigyur life in Turkey through donation and scholarship for Hafiz (Remembering Quran), non formal education and universities students.

What kind of life skill is "remembering Quran"? What job does that get you if you put it on a resume? What kind of person does it make you that you're proud your country does this? Instead of "remembering Quran", how about you donate to help these kids study science, engineering, medicine, etc. instead of promoting religious extremism and raising terrorists.

 

[Timur]

They are turks from central asia I am proud to see Turkey helping them it would be nice if they receive automatically citizenship it’s 100x better to have fellow turks as immigrants who won’t be brainwashed with separatism rather than ungrateful non-turkish origin migrants who are threat in the long-term

we should not have get iraqi or syrian into turkey except they are turks.. I dont accept it calling them turkmen, if they are turkmen then I am also a turkmen (yes we turks of turkey are majority turkmens of different clans side by side with kirgiz kazakh, uyghur, tatar) this word turkmen is a political chosen one to not take responsibility!

we should have taken 8 million uyghurs instead of the syrians.. no one can say anymore we couldnt have handled it.. if other friendly nations like kazakh, azerbaycan would help out a little bit we could have handled more uyghurs..

we have 5 million refugees it would not be impossible to handle uyghurs and we woudl need to socialize them the first generation should not be allowed to take political positions or other.. the second should be allowed to enter lower political stucture and things in economy and than the third could be handled as integrated

they should be placed in the east and get full support from us from jobs, money, to land to armed support let them have 5-8 children

uyghurs would integrate into turkish society very easy they would learn our accent without problems I dont think this would cause problems

again its is possible it is doable, it would bring many poblems but the benefits are more than what we loose...

 

[Ansu fati]

we should not have get iraqi or syrian into turkey except they are turks.. I dont accept it calling them turkmen, if they are turkmen then I am also a turkmen (yes we turks of turkey are majority turkmens of different clans side by side with kirgiz kazakh, uyghur, tatar) this word turkmen is a political chosen one to not take responsibility!

we should have taken 8 million uyghurs instead of the syrians.. no one can say anymore we couldnt have handled it.. if other friendly nations like kazakh, azerbaycan would help out a little bit we could have handled more uyghurs..

we have 5 million refugees it would not be impossible to handle uyghurs and we woudl need to socialize them the first generation should not be allowed to take political positions or other.. the second should be allowed to enter lower political stucture and things in economy and than the third could be handled as integrated

they should be placed in the east and get full support from us from jobs, money, to land to armed support let them have 5-8 children

uyghurs would integrate into turkish society very easy they would learn our accent without problems I dont think this would cause problems

again its is possible it is doable, it would bring many poblems but the benefits are more than what we loose...

I support your views we should definitely put them in the east to destroy those terror hotbeds around border region
5 milions non-turkish refugees in northern Syria and 8 milion uyghur turks in Turkey and there you have most of ME problems solved(fakestan dream destroyed once for all)
Also I support partial integration definitely the best way to smoothly blend them into turkish society

 

[beijingwalker]

we should have taken 8 million uyghurs instead of the syrians.. no one can say anymore we couldnt have handled it.. if other friendly nations like kazakh, azerbaycan would help out a little bit we could have handled more uyghurs..

Uighurs have around 12 million now, they are the fastest growing ethnic group in China, doubled their population in less than 30 years. You may like to take all of them, the problem is how many of them want to move to Turkey, most Uighur enjoy a very comfortable life in China with the standard of living being improved year on year, Xinjiang will be more and more richer, wealthier and more developed than Turkey, there' s no reason for them to move, they are not Syrian refugees.

 

[Balamir]

We're getting Uighurs fled to Turkey for torture, but they will stay there because their homeland East Turkestan. When Chinese despotism collapses, East Turkistan will establish their own state and live freely.