Why Uyghur refugees have reasons to be thankful to a government that is under heavy international criticism.
By Kok Bayraq
March 20, 2025
Whatever you may think of the current Syrian government, and agreeing that violent incidents against religious minorities should be seriously investigated by the international community, it continues to extend a welcome hospitality to Uyghur refugees there, which is not true for other countries with an Islamic majority.
The Syrian government recently announced a decision that will change the fate of some Uyghur exiles: the children of Uyghurs in Syria will receive free education from primary school to university.
This is, without a doubt, the greatest privilege the Uyghurs have ever achieved abroad. But a haunting question lingers—why was this privilege granted in an Arab land, rather than in the Western countries that recognize the Uyghur Genocide (although some Western countries have free education for all, including children of the refugees)? Why not in Turkic nations that share their bloodline? And how did this happen now, at a time when Arab-Chinese cooperation is at its peak?
This question took me back to a phone conversation I had yesterday with my musician friend Qasimjan, who lives in Syria. He mentioned a young man named Helil, who died in his arms during the war in Idlib.
— “You said Helil had something unusual with him when he died. What was it?”
— “We entered Syria together on the same day. The instructions were clear—we could only bring the bare essentials. Since we came through a smuggling route, even the weight of a single button was a burden. But our brother Khalil had brought a suitcase full of books… We discarded many things on the way, but he never let go of that suitcase.”
When I heard that, I froze. My mind clung to a single question: what kind of books could they be? Were they holy books that encouraged him to stand tall on the battlefield and never retreat? Were they books about a science he loved? Or books about a profession that could secure his family’s survival after the war? Whatever their content, I believe his goals and desires that led him to Syria were hidden in the books in that suitcase.
“We served together a few times at the front,” Qasimjan continued. “He always carried a book with him. Later, I found out he had been a computer science student at Xinjiang University. They expelled him after catching him praying three times. When he continued his studies in an underground religious school back home in Atush, his teacher was arrested. When it was his turn to be taken, he packed that suitcase and chose the road of Hijra.”
I thought about those books again. Perhaps they were the ones his imprisoned religious teacher had urged him to read, or the ones his university professor had warned him never to abandon. Those books were not just knowledge—they were his legacy, his compass, his silent companions in exile.
And so, that young man remained in my memory—not just as a fallen warrior, but as someone who had laid his head to rest on the books that had carried him through life.
People often speak of the Uyghur warriors who came to Syria—the farmers who left their sickles in the fields, the bakers who closed their shops, the shopkeepers who locked their doors for the last time. But they forget those who left behind their libraries. They forget the ones who packed their books and left, as if they could carry their stolen future with them.
The Uyghurs in Syria are not just warriors. They are people who were denied education and dignity and who now fight to ensure that their children will not inherit this thirst for knowledge.
Perhaps the Syrian Ministry of Education heard the stories of Helil and his companions—perhaps they recognized, in their fallen comrades, a familiar pain. This decision to grant free education was not just an act of kindness; it was the result of shared suffering, a silent acknowledgment of a common struggle.
One day, if I ever set foot in Syria, I have already decided my first destination: Helil’s grave.
— “Where did you bury him?”
— “In the Uyghur cemetery in Idlib.”
— “How many Uyghurs rest there?”
— “Around 2,500, I think.”
— I think around 2,500.
There is no official record of how many Uyghurs have died in Syria. Some say 2,000, others estimate up to 3,000. Rune Steenburg, a researcher who recently interviewed Uyghurs in Syria, says there are now between 10,000 and 20,000 Uyghurs living there. If these numbers are true, then Qasimjan’s estimate was not far off.
The decision of the Syrian government is not merely an act of generosity. It is a tribute—a silent bow to the blood that has mixed with the soil of Idlib, to the thousands of Uyghurs buried beneath it, and to the families they left behind.
When I was in Türkiye in the fall of 2020, I had a friendly conversation with three Istanbul-based representatives of the Uyghurs in Syria. That day, I asked them, “You fought in Afghanistan, but the Afghan government did not provide any help. Do you think Syria will?”
One of them, Saifulla Hajim, replied: “Let’s leave Afghanistan aside and talk about Syria. We did not enter the war blindly, nor were we pushed into it. We did not rush in—we made our decision after long and careful thought. We had promises and oaths among us. We trusted the faith, humanity, and conscience of our Arab comrades there. But we also knew that they were human, so ultimately, we put our trust in Allah. Life requires taking risks, and we took them.”
And so, the books in Helil’s suitcase remain unfinished, their pages turned only by the wind. But their weight, the weight he carried through the smuggling routes and onto the battlefield, has not been forgotten. Today, in Syria’s classrooms, children of his people will open books again—not as exiles, not as fugitives, but as students.
And maybe, just maybe, that is what Helil had hoped for all along.
Source: bitterwinter.org
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