Kazakhstan: two refugees from China violently attacked

The two refugees from China were simultaneously attacked in two different cities, including Almaty (illustration image) © wikipediawikimedia commons / CC BY-SA 3.0 / FixerKZ

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Two refugees from the Xinjiang region of China were violently assaulted Thursday evening.

Information provided by a local NGO.

The two victims arrived in the country in 2020 and 2021, they claimed to be victims of ethnic and religious persecution.

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Murager Alimuly and Kaisha Akan were granted temporary asylum last October.

This did not prevent them from being violently assaulted on Thursday.

Murager Alimuly was attacked with a knife - he is in critical condition according to the Kazakhstan International Bureau for Human Rights, which also released a photo of Kaisha Akan with a bruise on his face.

Two attacks carried out simultaneously, while the victims were in two different cities - the capital Nur-Sultan and Almaty, the country's largest city.

They entered Kazakhstan illegally after fleeing China, where they said they were victims of the repression that targets, among other things, the Uyghur minority in the Xinjiang region, where thousands of Kazakh citizens have relatives.

In Kazakhstan, many activists and NGOs denounce the situation in this region of western China: according to them and according to the UN a million Uyghurs have been locked up in camps there.

The NGOs blame the Kazakh authorities for not condemning this situation.

Kazakhstan, which sees itself as a central link in China's new silk routes, is counting on Beijing to continue buying its natural resources.

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  • Kazakhstan

  • China

  • Refugees