One year has passed since the Urumqi Fire. Maybe the world has forgotten, but we have not. On that day, Uighurs experienced a tragedy.
On Nov. 24 last year, 44 people lost their lives in a fire that broke out in an 18-story building in Urumqi where Uighurs lived. The majority were mothers and children, whose screams coming out of the fire spread through surrounding buildings and were seen across the world via the Internet. Nobody could help them, as the region was under lockdown due to China’s “zero-COVID-19” policy, and the doors of buildings and houses were locked.
Moreover, as the parents and husbands of some of those burned in the fire had been incarcerated in prisons and camps, the people trapped in the building lacked the physical strength to break down the doors.
People in neighboring buildings heard the screams and were heartbroken, but helpless to save them, as they were also under siege. Chinese firefighters were unable to approach the building, because it had been fenced and roped off as part of the lockdown measures.
As a result, hoses could not reach the building. China’s military and police forces did not show the same courage and skill in saving these helpless people as they did in the “terror” incidents in the region.
China kept the identities and numbers of those who lost their lives in the tragedy secret. The questions of Uighur rights advocates were left unanswered: Were the victims’ bodies buried according to Muslim traditions? Was the tragedy reported to family members in prisons and camps and were they included in the death ceremony? Have families been given compensation or assistance?
So far we only know the identity of a mother and her three children among the 44 people who lost their lives that day, from Radio Free Asia reporting. They were Qembernisa, 48; Shehide, 13; Abdurahman, 9; and Nehdiye, 5. The reason this is known is that Qembernisa’s other two children are studying in Turkey.
On this day last year, 44 people burned and suffocated in the fire for three hours and died while mothers held their babies in their arms, children ran from one corner of the room to the other, back and forth between walls.
The world might have forgotten this scene, but we have not and we never will. They were a vulnerable part of our community who experienced the disaster of the concentration camp. Even those not in the inferno in Urumqi that night were burning in the fire of the drama of arrested parents and their relatives. While Qembernisa and her three children were burning, her husband, Memeteli Metniyaz, and son, Ilyas Memeteli, were serving jail time in Urumqi Prison. We are unable to hold China accountable for this disaster, but we believe that history will one day.
We do not forget that in these terrible days, the Turkish government expressed its condolences to our people, and the European Parliament called on Beijing to make a clear statement about the tragedy and hold those responsible accountable. However, there was no response.
On this painful anniversary, we remind the world community of this truth: If the investigation of the murder is entrusted to the murderer, the field will be covered by the seeds of hostility, not the light of justice.
The Urumqi fire tragedy is a typical example of the Uighur genocide. We call on every individual and institution that see themselves as a part of humanity to remember this scene and learn the lessons they deserve.
Kok Bayraq is a Uighur observer. Rebiya Kadeer is a former president of the World Uyghur Congress.
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