(Karachi) China has dismissed a news report saying it is separating ethnic Uighur children from their parents as part of social engineering policies in the western region of Xinjiang. It also called the report a "farce".

The report was published in The Guardian a few days ago.

Foreign Ministry Spokesman Zhao Lijian also rejected the report and termed it a move by anti-China groups to defame China over its policies in Xinjiang, where most of China’s Muslim Uighur population lives.

The report criticized the Chinese government, saying that thousands of Uighur children appear to have been left without parents as their mothers or fathers were forced into Chinese internment camps, prison and other detention facilities.

In addition, in 2018 more than 9,500 Uighur children in Yarkand county were classified either as experiencing “single hardship” or “double hardship” depending on if one or both parents were detained, it stated.

The report revealed that all the children had at least one parent in prison, detention or a “re-education” centre. However, no Chinese children were on the list. "Children are often placed in state orphanages or high-security boarding schools where students are closely monitored and almost all classes and interaction must be carried out in Mandarin instead of their native Uighur language," it highlighted.

The report comes after nearly two dozen activist groups wrote a letter to the United Nations claiming a genocide was taking place against the Uighurs and urged it to investigate the matter.