Report: China separating Muslim children from families

China is separating children from their Uighur Muslim parents held in “re-education camps,” and has plans to keep these minors in large boarding schools in the Xinjiang province, according to a report.

A rapid and large-scale campaign to build more boarding schools is also underway.

The report, released publically by independent researcher Dr Adrian Zenz and the BBC, further stated that the construction of highly secured boarding schools are part of a coordinated state campaign to full-time or near full-time care for all children from a very young age. 

The report further reveals that alongside the efforts to transform the identity of Xinjiang's adults, the evidence points to a parallel campaign to systematically remove children from their roots. 

More than 400 children of a township alone have lost both of their parents to some form of internment, either in the camps or in prison. The country are now carrying out some formal assesments on whether the children are in need of “centralised care,” said the report. 

Since April 22 last year, reports began emerging that China was operating a system of internment camps for Muslims in Xinjiang. A satellite photo showed a massive, highly secure compound outside the small town of Dabancheng, a short drive away from the provincial capital Urumqi.

There are allegations that hundreds of thousands of Uighur adults were forcefully sent to that so called internment camps. However, China had firmly denied such allegations, saying the Uighurs are being educated in "vocational training centres" in order to combat violent religious extremism. 

But many reports claim that Uighurs are being detained for simply expressing their faith - praying or wearing a veil - or for having overseas connections to places like Turkey. 

German researcher Dr Adrian Zenz is working to expose the full extent of China's reported mass detentions of adult Muslims in Xinjiang. Based on publicly available official documents, his research paints a picture of an unprecedented school expansion drive in Xinjiang.

On a massive scale, campuses have been enlarged, new dormitories built and capacity increased. The state has also been growing its ability to care full-time for large numbers of children at precisely the same time as it has been building the detention camps, said the report.