BEIJING, MAR 25 (DNA) – Every autumn on the mountainous Karakoram Highway, part of the ancient Silk Road, 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, longing for the spring thaw that would allow them to be reunited in Xinjiang.

But last year many of their calls suddenly went unanswered.

Their families, they learned, had disappeared into a growing network of shadowy “reeducation centres” that have swept up the region’s Uighur Muslim minority over fears of Islamic militancy crossing the border from Pakistan.

“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 who declined to give his surname over concern about his family’s safety.

Last July, he headed to China to find them, but was turned away at the border. Authorities “said my wife was in ‘training’ and the government was taking care of my kids”, he told.=DNA

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