Locked down and running out of food: Xinjiang residents vent on social media

There hasn’t been an official announcement but people in Ili Kazakh prefecture say they have been confined to their homes since early August after Covid-19 outbreak

They have complained about shortages of food and supplies and difficulties accessing medical care, as well as conditions in quarantine facilities

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There have also been complaints about conditions in makeshift hospitals used for quarantine in the Xinjiang region. Photo: Weibo

Published: 11:00pm, 9 Sep 2022Updated: 11:51pm, 9 Sep 2022

Residents in part of the western Xinjiang region have taken to social media to complain of serious shortages of food and supplies after more than a month of Covid-19 restrictions.

The Ili Kazakh autonomous prefecture – an area in the north of Xinjiang that is home to 4.5 million people – has been under lockdown since early August after an outbreak there, according to posts on microblogging site Weibo. There has been no official announcement about the Ili Kazakh prefecture being locked down.

The authorities are struggling to contain recent outbreaks, with millions also confined to their homes in other parts of China as Beijing seeks to avoid a major surge of infections ahead of the Communist Party’s national congress – a key political gathering in mid-October.

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On Friday, health authorities reported 259 new symptomatic local cases and 1,033 asymptomatic infections. Of those, three local and 27 asymptomatic cases were in Xinjiang.

Beijing has discouraged citywide lockdowns to avoid a repeat of the food and medicine shortages seen in Shanghai in April. But according to a number of social media posts in the past few days, many residents of the Ili Kazakh prefecture have been confined to their homes and say they have run out of food and other supplies.

A statement posted on the official Weibo account of the Xinjiang Procuratorate on Wednesday said 19 officials from Yining – the capital of Ili Kazakh prefecture – had been punished for failing to control the movement of people and other negligence, which had resulted in Covid-19 spreading.

Some residents have complained about food shortages becoming acute in the prefecture in recent days, with one post on Weibo showing a Uygur man in tears because his three children had not eaten for days. Others said they could not get access to medical care, with one post including a photo of a Uygur boy with a high temperature waiting for treatment. Neither post could be verified independently.