Adelaide resident Mat says his sister-in-law in China has been unable to return home to care for her three children for five weeks, since a COVID-19 lockdown began in Xinjiang.
"She works in a factory, and her husband works at a different factory," said Mat, an Australia Uyghur who does not want to use his full name for security reasons.
"When the lockdown [started], they were locked down in their workplaces and weren't allowed to go home. The kids were all by themselves.
"Her husband negotiated with the factory and managed to come home after three weeks, but my wife's sister is still at the factory with no change of clothes."
Mat said the youngest of the three children was just four or five years old and the oldest was 13.
"They have to talk on the phone and the kids do what the mother asked them to do," he said.
The family live in Ili, a Kazakh prefecture of Xinjiang in western China, one of at least six locations in Xinjiang enduring lockdowns of varying severity.
On Tuesday, Chinese authorities reported only one confirmed case for the entire Xinjiang region, home to 12 million Uyghur people.
Another 25 people tested positive but were asymptomatic. Six of of those asymptomatic cases were in Ili.
Last week, at least 33 cities were reportedly put in lockdown as China continues to pursue its COVID-zero policy.
But unlike lockdowns in other major cities in China, lockdowns in Xinjiang are rarely discussed publicly and face strict censorship on the Chinese internet.
Chinese language media reported that censors in Xinjiang have been asked to "dilute discussions" about Ili's lockdown, by posting videos and pictures of "lifestyle, baby matters, and food".
The Xinjiang lockdowns come as outgoing United Nations human rights commissioner Michelle Bachelet recently released a report detailing serious allegations of human rights abuses against Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities in China's Xinjiang region.
The report concluded there were "patterns of torture" in what China calls "vocational education and training centres".
'This is not simply a lockdown'
Hundreds of people from the Uyghur community attended a protest in Adelaide on Tuesday calling for action to stop human rights abuses in Xinjiang.
Adam Turan, a Uyghur community leader in Australia, said despite years of advocating against human rights abuses in his homeland, things were not getting better.
"The United Nations just released the report that there are camps and millions of people are in the camps. Now, again, we are on the frontline [of lockdown]."
"We're telling them this is not simply a lockdown. This is something very horrible going on."
Inty Elham, a Uyghur Australian human rights activist, said she was only able to get confirmation of the COVID lockdown and food shortages in Ili from ethnic Han friends living there.
Uyghur residents were too afraid to talk, Ms Elham said.
Ms Elham said she was overwhelmed by what's going on.
"All these horrific videos and voice messages that have emerged on social media show a lot of the residents are crying out for help," she said.
"We've also seen videos of Chinese authorities literally kicking and shoving over people who are crying out for help."
Ms Elham believes that China's COVID measures are being used as a tactic to directly target individuals by threatening to send them to re-education camps.
"Basically, in addition to the severe human rights abuses, as we know, Uyghurs outside the camps are basically under house arrest. They've been under these lengthy COVID lockdowns," she said.
"It's been 40 days now."
Lotfi Taranchi, a Uyghur man who lives in Norway, told the ABC a video of showing his brother-in-law Abdulla Ablimit in Ili lying unconscious on the ground was posted on social media.
He said his wife could not stop crying after she saw the video on Sunday.
Mr Taranchi said Mr Ablimit had been infected with tuberculosis in Ili’s re-education camp and sent home to recover.
He said he and his wife were concerned about his wife's brother’s health but wouldn't dare to make contact with their families in Xinjiang.
"We've lost contact with our families for a long time," he said. "We just want to know how they are."
In her speech at a protest in Adelaide on Tuesday, Ms Elham called on people to write and talk to their parliament members in order to urge the Australian government to hold China to account for what's happening.
"We need to help and action more than anything now, " she said.
'Only cooking oil and flour left'
A Uyghur woman living in Adelaide, who also did not want to use her name because of security concerns, said her aunt in Ili only had cooking oil and flour left at home earlier this week.
"She cried so badly over the phone," she said.
"She said the situation was getting worse and people just couldn't access food and medicine.
"The only way she could get vegetables was from her ethnic Han neighbour. She didn't know how the neighbour received supplies."
The Adelaide resident said she suspects that China's harsh treatment of Uyghur people had led to greater difficulties for Uyghur people in lockdown.
She said Uyghurs in China are too afraid of being punished to search online for relief resources, or make open complaints about their living situations.
Many people have deleted social media connections with friends and families living overseas, because those connections could get them in trouble in China, she added.
"They are asking [me] for help because they have no choice and they put their lives at risk [to contact us]."
"[Otherwise] they may die because of hunger."
Despite the censorship of social media from the locked-down areas in Xinjiang, some posts have still surfaced about food shortages and a lack of medical care.
Last week, a video that went viral on Weibo but was later censored showed a Uyghur mother sending videos of her children, who were suffering high fevers, to a neighbourhood WeChat group with local officials, begging for doctors to see the children.
The Xinjiang government responded to that video online, saying three children seen in the video were provided medicine and had recovered.
Radio Free Asia reported how residents in Yining, the capital of Ili, protested on the streets after being locked at home with limited food supplies. Many were arrested by police, the report said.
A video posted by people living in Ili on WeChat showed a man under a dim street light, saying: "If any of you say one word about Ghulja, knowingly or without knowing, that's it, you are finished."
Ghulja is the Uyghur word for Ili.
A rapper from Korla who goes under the name Badboiiiii on Weibo, posted a song he produced last week to give a voice to residents living under lockdown in his city.
He said in the caption that since he couldn't speak out, he was putting his words in the song and he's releasing the song after carefully thinking about the consequences.
"There is nothing left in the fridge," the song lyrics said.
"Too many people are crying.
"The calls were never answered and you never see any change coming up.
"They taped my lips and do not let me speak."
The ABC contacted the Chinese embassy for comment but did not receive a response.
