On 6 December the director of the border service of the Committee of National Security of Kazakhstan, Darhan Dilmanov stated that two ethnic Kazakhs who had fled Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region in China (XUAR) and illegally crossed the border between China and Kazakhstan on 6 October 2019 would be returned to China.
Kaster Musakhanuly and Murager Alimuly are currently in pre-trial detention in East Kazakhstan Region facing charges of illegally crossing the border. Both have applied for asylum in Kazakhstan. Kaster Musakhanuly claims that he was held in a re-education camp in XUAR and beaten.
