From the Radio Free Asia (link):
Uyghur Muslim families in China’s northwestern region of Xinjiang are feeling the devastating impact of the heroin trade as drug-trafficking routes become well-established, bringing addiction, crime, and HIV/AIDS infection in their wake.
“Drug addicts are increasing now, and they are young Uyghur men and boys,” a drug-trafficking enforcement officer in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region told RFA’s Uyghur service.
“The number has increased in the past nine years…During the past two years, some Uyghur addicts have come here voluntarily,” he said. “They are mainly between the ages of 18 and over 20. There are some 17- and 16 year-old boys and there are some 15-year-old boys as well.”
See also – “Xinjiang: An Emerging Narco-Islamist Corridor?” by the Jamestown Foundation; – “Xinjiang Cracks Major Family-Based Drug trafficking Case” by People’s Daily
