Press Release – For immediate Release
23 July 2026, World Uyghur Congress
On the 12th anniversary of the Yarkand massacre, the World Uyghur Congress (WUC) solemnly commemorates the victims of one of the deadliest crackdowns in East Turkistan since the 2009 Urumchi unrest. On and after July 28, 2014, Chinese security forces brutally suppressed a peaceful protest in Yarkand County, resulting in the mass killing of innocent Uyghur civilians. To this day, the true scope of the atrocity remains obscured by a total blackout on information.
The massacre, which coincided with the first day of Eid al-Fitr, started when a Uyghur family of five was killed by police during a house search. In response, residents fled to nearby Elishku Township and staged protests against state violence and Ramadan restrictions. Rather than address their grievances, the Chinese government responded with overwhelming lethal force.
While Beijing claims that 96 people—including 59 Uyghurs—were killed during what it described as a “premeditated terrorist attack,” Uyghur sources report far higher casualties, estimating that up to 3,000 people may have been killed or disappeared. In the aftermath, authorities cut off internet and mobile communication in the region, leaving families desperate for news and erasing any hope of independent investigation.
“Every year, we remember the victims of Chinese state violence, but the Yarkand massacre remains the single deadliest event in recent memory,” said WUC President Turgunjan Alawdun. “For 12 years, families have been denied answers, justice, and dignity. The international community cannot continue to look away from atrocity crimes and the ongoing Uyghur genocide.”
The Chinese government has long weaponized counter-terrorism rhetoric to justify widespread repression of the Uyghur people. Its 2016 Counter-Terrorism Law—criticized by UN experts for its vague and expansive definitions—has served as a legal pretext for systematic mass surveillance, arbitrary detention, and cultural erasure.
In East Turkistan today, religious practice is criminalized, independent journalism is extinguished, and daily life is defined by fear and surveillance. Yarkand was not an isolated incident—it was a harbinger of the genocidal policies that would soon unfold on a mass scale.
To this day, the fate and identities of many of the disappeared remain unknown. Families continue to live in limbo, with no access to justice, remediation or truth.
The World Uyghur Congress urgently calls on the Chinese government to disclose the names, locations, and fates of those killed or disappeared in Yarkand. We demand independent, international investigations into the massacre, as well as broader accountability for the crimes committed in East Turkistan.
We once again urge the international community—governments, NGOs, and multilateral institutions—to take concrete, coordinated action to end the Uyghur genocide and ensure that such atrocities are never repeated.
The World Uyghur Congress will also hold a protest to commemorate the 12 years of the Yarkand Massacre on the Chinese Consulate in Munich, from 16:00 pm to 17:30 pm, on the 28th of July, in order to make our accountability demands properly heard, and it invites all of the Uyghur community as well as allies to join.
