“I’ve finally spoken to my mum after seven years”

Aziz Isa Elkun, exiled Uyghur, spoke to his mother after seven years. She was detained in 2018. He seeks UK government support to reunite with her.

According to BBC News, Aziz Isa Elkun, from London, spent seven years not knowing whether his mother was alive. On a random day in April last year, he received an anonymous video call from her, which he said was monitored by the Chinese Foreign Affairs Department.

Aziz, 54, said his mother, Hepizikhan, who is an Uyghur, was placed in a Chinese camp in 2018 and was later released.

China is accused of detaining more than a million Uyghurs since 2016 – but the government calls them “re-education camps” and denies all allegations of abuse.

Aziz is calling on the British government to allow his 82-year-old mother to come to the UK, where he can care for her. The Chinese Embassy was contacted for comment but did not respond.

Recalling the moment they spoke for the first time since 2017, Aziz said: “She was crying so much and was so grateful to speak to me.”
“I believe the call was monitored by the Chinese police, so we had to be careful what we said. I was asking her about her health and she was asking about my family.”

He has been able to speak to his mother four times since April 2024, with the last call in January 2025.

He believes the Chinese police were monitoring the calls.

Five years ago, the BBC interviewed Aziz, and he said that he did not know if his mother was alive in the camp.
“Every day I feel depressed that I can’t speak to my mother properly,” Aziz said. “I don’t know how to express how this makes me feel.”

He was forced to leave his homeland in 1999 and came to London in 2001. Aziz is now a British citizen and lives in the capital with his wife and three children. An exile and an academic, Aziz has written about the treatment of Uyghurs by the Chinese government and protested against it.

Aziz said: “There are 20 million Uyghurs on our land, and the Chinese government has tried to uproot and erase Uyghurs’ connection to their homeland.”
“This has never happened in human history; it’s beyond my understanding and expression, the level of atrocity.”

Read the full story on the BBC News website.