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“We're learning more about what went wrong on board flight 1073 that was meant to travel from Dubai to Tel Aviv this week. It was forced to land in Saudi Arabia after the co-pilot attacked the flight captain with an axe.”From the transcript
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dc — FlyDubai pilot describes attack by his co-pilot. Machine-transcribed; use the interactive transcript above to jump the player to any line.
Hello, and welcome to NewsHour from the BBC World Service coming to you live from London, I'm Celia Hatton. We're learning more about what went wrong on board flight 1073 that was meant to travel from Dubai to Tel Aviv this week. It was forced to land in Saudi Arabia after the co-pilot attacked the flight captain with an axe. The pilot, Captain Smith Machar, has been held as a hero in Israel after fighting off his co-pilot and getting help. He spoke today with the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. It was a normal flight and the co-pilot he wanted to pray, which a lot of locals they do pray, which is not out of the ordinary. But while he was praying out of respect, I was just looking at the front and not at the back. And suddenly after I think I would say about four or five minutes, there was a big blow
to the back of my head. My first thought was that there was a catastrophic damage to the aircraft and something is not right. And after that the blow kept coming, one after the other. And that's when I realized that it's not the aircraft, it's the other guy who was in the cockpit with me. I did try to stop him, but because of his initial blows, my vision was almost like nothing. And I was completely blurred out. At this point, I remember I was lying down on the cockpit floor. And I felt the aircraft and the washing sound and people screaming. And as I was telling the ambassador here, I had that one last fight left in me that, you know, call it personal or call it for people. But let's say I did it, that if I don't do it, I'm going to die. And that's when I pushed against everything I gave, everything that I had.
And just ran for the door and opened the door. And thankfully people were waiting to bounce back to go over the control and the rest is what you know, sir. The words of Captain Smith Macha. Well, reports have now emerged. The co-pilot had been previously been banned from flying by Oman because of concerns he adopted radical ideological views. The Wall Street Journal broke this story and says that despite the alleged ban, the was hired by fly Dubai in the UAE and went on to fly on the sensitive route into Israel. I asked the Wall Street Journal reporter Melan Cherny, who's in Tel Aviv, what he learned about the co-pilot and his past. I was also told that the attacker was previously banned from flying by Oman due to his radical views. So what we know is that it's a massive security failure from all side, frankly, both from Oman, from the UAE and from the Israeli side, who haven't done the required checks.
Tell me more about this co-pilots apparent views. Were you able to find out the nature of these views and when he appeared to become radicalized? We don't know when the radicalization took place and the exact nature of this radicalization. Prime Minister Netanyahu said that the attacker underwent Islamic radicalization and so far that's what we know. You've said that this is a massive security failure by all three countries. Were they ignoring protocol that's already in place? So this is a bit unclear. We don't really know exactly where this individual was missed and by who exactly and at what time. We know that normally all flight Dubai pilots are subject to security screening before flights and have frequent medical checks. We don't know if the attacker underwent a similar check, but in any case, what we do know is that it was previously banned from flying in Oman due to its use and this doesn't
seem to have raised warning light in the UAE and by flight Dubai when it was hired. What other angles is Israel investigating at this point? So Israel investigators are hoping to investigate and to interrogate the attacker. There are on the way to the UAE where the copilot is now held. Yeah, we don't really know exactly if Israel will be able to interrogate the attacker and when. But I think one thing which is quite important to stress is that Benjamin Netanyahu has been talking about the erosism of the passengers on this flight since the attack took place and that's obviously an important part of the story. But I think another part of the story is also the security failure and the absence of vetting from the Israeli side of this pilot that was able to fly on this very sensitive route between Dubai to Tel Aviv.
Is that question being asked in Israel at the moment? Does the government be pressed on why more wasn't done to protect against this kind of threat? So the Israeli government doesn't operate on Saturday because it's the Jewish Shabbat and so so far Israeli are getting to speed with our reporting and I'm sure there will be more question raised at the Israeli government in the coming days. But so far the Israeli government has declined to comment on our reporting. Just to change our focus a little bit Milan, you have written that Israel has called on Dubai in the past to step up security for flights heading to Tel Aviv. What can you tell us about those past Israeli concerns? I mean, I think in general Israel has tried to increase security check on airplane in the aftermath of October 7 but also after the start of the war in Iran. So this doesn't include only in Dubai, I think, generally across the world but especially
in Dubai given that it's kind of a sensitive route for Israel and so we know that Israel stopped its own airline from flying between Dubai and Israel for several months this year amidst the war in Iran due to the security concern. We also know the copilot allegedly used an axe to carry out the attack. What more can you tell me about that line that's emerging? I think so they were concerned early on in the week in the immediate aftermath that the attacker might have kind of snicked in a knife. But what we are learning now is that actually the weapon was already inside the plane and that it was an axe that was used by the attacker. American airplane and Emirati airplane, it's mandatory for them to carry on this plane during the flight. And so it seemed that this is the weapon that was used by the attacker to attack is an Indian copilot. Well straight journal reporter Milan Cherney.
Well Elon Parik is a retired pilot with years of experience flying Boeing 737s like that fly Dubai plane. He's now a flight instructor, Basinert Tel Aviv. What does he make of what happened? The best way to describe it is a series of miracles that saved these people and just did not let the day end with the catastrophic event. We are starting with two pilots just on a cruise flight at 34,000 feet with autopilot when the copilot attacks the captain and while attacking the captain initiates in a way a dive of the plane towards the ground. One potential thing that he might have done is shutting down the both engines. And with this the airplane is starting a descent and also we had to push down the control column, the stick, the yoke. If you wish to establish a descent of some say 15, some say more than 30 degrees dive
into the ground. Now the plane while diving into the ground accelerates because of the gravity and exceeds the design speed that it was designed for. Okay so the plane is going quickly down then what would have happened to change that? Now what happened actually is the second miracle the captain that was attacked managed to open the flight door and the third miracle was that a lady standing near the cockpit door on the other side heard the screaming and scrambled the people outside with the door open they could intervene and stop the attacker. Now the plane is uncontrolled and there were by chance a second crew sitting on board the plane and coming forward and assuming control.
Can we go back a little bit because I understand that the plane was going down but what allowed it to start to come up again? Would it have come up naturally on its own if the copilot let go of those controls? As much as I can tell somebody has to hold it down in order for it not to pitch up again at a certain point and I think he did after approximately 40 seconds the planes started to recover from its dive when the captain and the copilot were engaging the fight and he couldn't hold the controls down. Just on what you know when the two relief pilots were able to make it into the cabin what would they have had to do to land the plane? Were they faced with a real challenge? The plane had suffered some damage a part of its tail was this attached however out of
the controls of the plane this is the least important and a qualified pilot can land the plane without it which they did. How would passengers have felt during the different parts of this ordeal? This is really horrible because when there is an abrupt movement downwards it's like you are on an elevator when it starts to descend you feel you know like everything is going up on you. Now once the plane starts to recover they are being stressed to the ground to the seats in a force that maybe even doubles the weight and that's frightening. What kinds of training would pilots of passenger planes have received? Would this be something that the pilots would be able to deal with? We were not trained to confront an attacker from within that's the part of the show that was real surprised. Yes pilots know how to take over a plane which is on a dive it's called upset recovery
prevention. Another thing that they train is to start engines that were shut down and landing in a plane with functions. Yes we are being trained and tested every six to twelve months and I think they did a pretty good job like they should. How do you feel after witnessing this really dramatic event? The only thing that I can compare it is when you hear on the news that the parent killed its child. It's the deepest betrayal feeling so that's emotion. The practical feeling that I feel is that the world of aviation has to do another step like the one that the aviation world did after 9-11 events. Now we have to do another step to make sure that we reduce the risks that can be caused by a terrorist within the cockpit.
Retired pilot Alan Perrick speaking to us from near Tel Aviv more information on the story available on the BBC News website stay with us. Coming up we'll hear how exiled weekers from China became involved in the toppling of President Bashar Alessade's regime in Syria. They very quickly embraced violent resistance and they felt because Syria was in the midst of a civil war with many many different kinds of militias running around who all needed bodies to be frank that they could easily find people who would take them in despite the fact that they didn't speak Arabic very well at that point and were obviously foreigners. That's in 30 minutes time. Other stories we're tracking this hour Ethiopian government troops and their allies have taken control of the Tigrayan Regional Capital as Tigrayan forces withdrew 10 days after launching a fat fresh insurgency. The head of prisons in the US state of Tennessee is quitting following the failed attempt to execute
a woman on death row. Listening to news hour to Ethiopia now and the latest from the troubled province of Tigray in the country's north Ethiopian government forces and allied militias have taken control of Mikaile Tigray's capital. Residents said forces of the rebel Tigrayan people's liberation front or TPLF drove out of the city and trucks as federal troops entered. There are reports of looting inside the city. Magna's tailor is deputy director of the Horn of Africa project at crisis group based in Nairobi. I asked him about the significance of the TPLF's loss of control over Mikaile. It's definitely a significant moment in this new conflict. It suggests that we may now be entering the new phase in which the TPLF has to make decisions
about whether it will continue to fight the federal government in perhaps an asymmetric war, but without having any control over the regional capital. Do we know why the TPLF decided to withdraw? I think ultimately it came down to the fact that the TPLF's forces were overwhelmed by the military might of the federal forces and this had become apparent a week ago when they were defeated in battles further south when the federal forces entered the southern part of Tigray. It's interesting because we've seen the forces of the TPLF do this before back in 2020 at the start of the last civil war. At that time, the forces of the TPLF regrouped in the mountains and waged a guerilla war. Is it possible they'll try to do that again? I think that's possibly even the most likely scenario at the moment. I think there's a few differences from the war that started in 2020.
The TPLF's forces were effectively defeated at the end of the last war and they are a much depleted power. They demobilized quite a lot of troops in the last couple of years. They lost a lot of heavy weaponry and it's also unclear as to the willingness of ordinary Tigrayans to fight the federal government again. But they're now in an alliance with other Ethiopian rebel groups with the backing of neighboring Eritrea. How does that change things? That is a new factor that wasn't the case during the last war. The issue with this alliance is it's unclear whether it will really function effectively as a military alliance. We saw in the last 10 days when the Tigrayans and the Amharifano and a Fari rebel group from the eastern side of Tigray launch an attack on the federal forces. That was quite quickly pushed back. I think if these other groups launched their own defenses in different parts of the country
that could spread the federal forces quite thinly so that would be a factor. But the alliance doesn't seem to have been a game changer so far. And what about Eritrea's role in all of this? Eritrea has mended fences with the TPLF and is now supporting them in contrast to the past when they were bitter enemies. So how does that affect things? The Eritreans have certainly been an important factor in how the Ethiopian opposition groups have developed the alliance for survival as they called it. And they've also created a great deal of concern amongst the Ethiopian government. But Eritrea has really tried to push the fighting further away for its borders and not really invite the possibility of direct clashes between Ethiopia and Eritrea. How do you see this playing out in Tigray could outside players step in to stop it?
I think over the next few weeks there's going to be a lot of pressure on the federal government to act with restraint both in Tigray and also in its rumored plans to perhaps push back against Eritrea which would be really catastrophic for the Horn of Africa region which is already minding conflict in neighboring Sudan. Whether that will be effective remains to be seen. Magnus Taylor of Crisis Group in Nairobi. Let's focus on what's happening inside Gaza now. Over the past three years the war between Israel and Hamas has taken a heavy toll on children there and there's little support for their psychological trauma. But a local swimming school, the Tanteesh Swimming Academy, is trying to help. It's working with an NGO, Heel Palestine, to offer special classes for children who've lost their limbs in Israeli attacks. They're also offering classes to those who've lost their parents. The UN says up to 4,000 children have had limb amputations and more than 60,000 have
lost at least one parent. From Italy's correspondent Yulanael reports. Rebuilding broken lives in Gaza with the healing power of water. These swimming lessons cater especially for children who've lost their limbs in Israel's intense bombing campaign. Mahmoud Abu Shaddak, who's 15, was hit in the leg by Shrapnel a year ago. He says it's too difficult to go back to school, but he comes to this pool in Khranunis, which made it through the war intact. In the water I know how to dive, swim, float and do everything. But outside the water I can't do much. I just sit around. I'm sorry. But I need that. 13 year old Abdurrahman Anashash is also becoming more confident. He lost his leg in an air strike while he was looking after a relative's food stall. I stopped playing.
I stopped moving around. I stopped walking. I stopped going out with my friends. Swimming gives me freedom and I swim well. I swim very well. Gaza now has the highest concentration of child amputies relative to its population. The UN says. And with the collapse of the medical system and restrictions on aid, those with serious injuries are struggling to get rehabilitation and the supplies they need from wheelchairs to crutches and prosthetic limbs. One coach here knows what that's like first hand. Pharmacist Nouradine Keshekash says he was injured while working with a medical team at the start of the war. His leg was amputated, but he insists it won't stop him pursuing his goals. Baban, ana, ana. I'm a living example. I was once an ordinary person with two legs. Today I'm the person with one leg. I was able to change. As long as I can do it, I can help bring about change.
Other lessons take place on Gaza's sandy beaches. There are few swimming pools in Gaza and none of the usual swimming aids. Israel tightly restricts what's allowed into the strip. It says for security. So instructors here make do using sandbags just off the coast to create a safer shallow area for beginners. I'm not going to use the sandbags. Amjad Pantish runs the swimming academy. So we start with them in the safe sea pools, south-wing Gaza and then prepare them to eventually swim in the sea after mastering the basic of swimming and floating. The sea became the only escape for children here in Gaza. The children who've lost loved ones, this is desperately needed therapy. And for many other children displaced in tents on the coast, it's also about safety. Aliyin Al-Kalani, who's 12, has stopped thinking about the sea as a place of danger.
I was scared to see it till I learned to swim. I want to be a swimming teacher because swimming is wonderful. I think it's very healthy. But while there's always a return to Gaza's harsh realities at the end of classes, at least some cares have been washed away. In the middle of these correspondents, you'll learn now bringing us voices from the Tantish swimming academy inside Gaza. You're listening to NewsHour on the BBC World Service. Welcome back to NewsHour. To Italy now, almost two decades ago, the government there came up with a novel way to revitalize
once vibrant villages. It decided to sell some homes and die your need of renovations for as little as one euro or just over one dollar. The scheme, which was first launched in 2008 by the town of Salemi and Sicily, resulted in a lot of media excitement and was quickly adopted across Italy as a way to repopulate empty towns. But what's the real cost of buying a one-year-old home? Adriana Urbano traveled to Central Sicily to find out more. I'm in Mussomi today. As a Cillion town of less than 10,000 people, about one hour from the coast. What you can hear are a state agent Natalie Milazzo's keys. She's taken me to see what is left, or one of Italy's most successful one-year home schemes. There are only 10 to 15 one-year homes left. Today, we mainly sell newer properties in better conditions because the one-year homes
that are left are in bad shape. The newer homes need little work and are really affordable. And here it is. One of the last homes left in Mussomi for one euro. It's in a street in the town centre, peppered with other empty homes. She's letting me in with a massive ancient eye and key, twice the size of my hand. I'm now walking down three old steps past a metal door in what is clearly an old basement hence the echoey sound. The rest of the property is small and abandoned. I can even see bottles of homemade sauce left behind by previous owners. Natalie tells me it needs new wiring, new plumbing and a new floor, which should cost around 40,000 euros. That's roughly the same price of a so-called premium property. But what about the one-year homes in better condition? George Lang is from the UK. He has bought four one-year homes in Mussomi which is now renovating himself.
He has amassed over 800,000 followers on social media where he gives advice to people interested in buying a one-year home in Sicily. So all in, you know, it's about 3,500, 4,000-year-old for a house. You can do all the work yourself as long as it's not structured. With this rugged countryside and almost two hours away from an airport, Mussomioli isn't always what people think of when they picture Sicily. But many tell me it's the town's community spirit that sealed the deal. Though many buyers are only here for the summer, their presence is shaping the town. Laura Janko is 32 and has lived here her whole life. She says the one-year-old home buyers have brought new energy and projects to Mussomioli. Mussomioli was practically dead. The situation here has changed a lot and so has people's mindset. There is more to do and that's especially helpful for teenagers. I think this could lead to a revolution, really positive change. That was Adriana Urbano reporting from Mussomioli in Central Sicily.
You're listening to NewsHour. I'm Celia Hatten and this is NewsHour on the BBC World Service. News from Russia's far east now where almost 200 people in the Russian region of Eirkursk have been placed under medical observation. That's after a laboratory technician is reported to have died of pneumonic plague. The local governor did not confirm the disease, calling it simply a particularly dangerous infection, but said he'd been working closely with the head of the public health watchdog. Reports say the 28-year-old technician worked at the Eirkursk anti-plague research institute of Siberia and may have broken a test tube containing the plague pathogen at the laboratory. These reports are obviously very high to hard to verify themselves, but based on what little we know so far, what can we learn about this possible threat? Professor Javier Pizarro Serda is director of the plague research institute at the Pastor Institute in Paris.
Bubonic plague has been until now the most common form of plague, and we think that it was very prevalent in Europe in medieval time. But plague is still around us. It's a disease that is endemic in several countries like Madagascar, the Democratic Republic of Congo, where still pneumonic plague is the most common form, but from time to time there are cases of pneumonic plague when the bacteria reach the lungs of the person. So it's very rare form of disease, but it can happen today in natural settings. So apparently we have one supposed death in Russia, but 200 people under observation. Would you agree with this response? Is it proportional? Well, plague is a very dangerous disease. In the case of pneumonic plague, we think that there is 100% of letality if people are not treated with the right antibiotics early enough.
So I think that it is reasonable to investigate 200 potential contact people because these disease can be transmitted from person to person like COVID via droplets via aerosols. We're hearing reports that this was a lab technician, a 28 year old lab technician, who may have broken a test tube containing the plague pathogen. Why would a lab have samples of this disease to begin with? Well, I have to say that there are several labs, including ours around the world, who still work with plague because there are no license vaccines, vaccines universally approved around the world. There have been vaccines which have been used in the past, but today they do not comply with current standards. So we are several labs working on the development of a new plague vaccine. And we are also working on developing more sensitive and more rapid diagnostic tests so that we can detect the disease very early.
And so what should we be looking for if this plague spreads, if this story continues to grow? How will we know if this is a real issue? I don't think that it's going to be a real issue because even if it's a disease that can be transmitted from person to person, the ratio of transmission is not that important. And if the person has been already isolated and treated, I don't think that the risk of an outbreak or an important outbreak, so I don't think there were real reasons to be alarmed. Professor Javier Pizarra Serra with the Pasteur Institute in Paris. To the US now, the governor of the state of New York, Kathy Hocal, has vowed to close a legal loophole, allowing offenders to avoid rape charges if their victims were willingly intoxicated. She made the promise at a media conference, addressing the alleged gang rape of a female student at New York's elite Cornell University two years ago.
She also appointed the state attorney generalist, special prosecutor, to investigate the case. There's been public outrage that no criminal charges have yet been brought in relation to the allegations. Ms. Hocal strongly criticized how the investigation was handled. In a statement, Cornell said it was committed to an independent external review of its handling of the case. When the victim reported the case to Cornell University Police, the university launched an internal investigation and issued penalties, including two expulsions, to some of the alleged assailants, but it didn't go any further. Kate Mann is a professor of philosophy at Cornell University, and she's written a magazine article about the case titled, What It Feels Like At Cornell Right Now. My colleague, Julian Warker, asked her what she made of the process. Although the Cornell University Police is a police department, there is at this point no indication that Jando was questioned by someone who was suitably trained in helping sexual assault survivors.
Cornell University Police condensed hours of a written statement in a very misleading way into six pages, which emitted statements that were crucial to understanding the case. And we see this now in the transcript. She said to Cornell University Police, I am 100% confident that I was raped. They managed to emit that crucial statement and others like it in what they submitted to the district attorney in Tomkins County, who then concluded that the behavior was awful, but lawful, because it was done under the influence of voluntary intoxication. What does this all say to you about the culture at the university like Cornell then and now? I mean, you've written about what it feels like at Cornell right now. I have the article in front of me, and I was very struck by one line in it. There is a prevailing sense that campus culture is rape culture. Yes, and it is particularly true vis-a-vis fraternities.
And we have very clear data indicating this. A 2025 survey from Cornell indicated that a whopping 52% of female undergraduates who are Greek affiliated, so in a sorority house, and therefore in close connection with these fraternities, 52% report experiencing sexual assault. Far higher than the general population at Cornell, where female undergraduates who are not a sorority member, 29% of them indicated they had experienced sexual assault. There are also concerns about these general organizations called fraternities that really have what you might call a brocode where if someone does something immoral or illegal, you don't say anything about it as a kind of false moral norm. Right, so that takes us to one element of this case where one of the alleged offenders sent a text to a group chat, alerting other members of the fraternity that the assault was happening and that frankly they were invited to come and participate.
Correct. We know that there were 57 members of the Khaifai House who, whether or not all of those members saw the messages, it seems unlikely, but certainly many of them would have done, and no one did anything. If you're right about that culture, how do you change it? The rates of sexual assault on campus are just sterbingly high. Others survey data indicates that 26% of female undergraduates are assaulted during a four-year college degree. First, we need to ban the frats. It is an unpopular move with donors, but I think we have to try. But we also have to address the wider campus culture and frankly, patriarchy in general under which rates of sexual assault are incredibly high across the board. This is just a piece of the patriarchal puzzle, but it is true that fraternities are an especially dangerous place and I think we need to have a serious conversation about abolishing them right now.
Kate Mann, a professor of philosophy at Cornell University. Relations between the US and Canada have been tense. Ever since Donald Trump came into office and joked, or threatened, some say, about making Canada his country's 51st state. The two sides are now engaged in a spiraling trade war. Ties are likely to deteriorate further. Now the US has banned a slew of Canadian imports, including some alcohol and dairy products and even motorcycles. Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney has stood firm imposing retaliatory tariffs. The geopolitical spat is impacting people and businesses based on both sides of the border. The BBC's Robin Levinson King reports starting on the US side. Just across the Niagara River in upstate New York, the Buffalo Bill's NFL team uniquely relies on its fans from the North. Mid-Hiton political tensions. The US team extended their Canadian
supporters in Olive Branch, playing the Canadian anthem at a recent National Football League game. O'Reilly for the All-American Sport. American bills fans in this border city were keen to echo this feeling of solidarity with their neighbors. Tensions are absolutely all-atrump-swout. Hopefully the next administration will heal the wounds up a little bit and we're back to where we live with Canadians because there's some of the finest people I've ever met in my life. We've shared a lot of different things as countries, different countries. Now we're involving politics and everything else that's eroding that relationship. The majestic fall straddles the two countries. Separated by just a river, the communities and economies of these parts of New York and Ontario are deeply interwoven, but the recent disputes between Ottawa and Washington have seen those ties elucent.
Business is zero. We are down millions across the board. Christine Geary is the owner of Maple Leaf Tours, a travel agency based in eastern Ontario. Since the new administration, the US our US tours have basically disappeared. We used to have departures into New York City. Monthly, we have done tours to Nashville, Florida, Boston, and we have had nothing. We have lost everything into the US. This is part of a wider trend. National figures show trips from Canada to the US are down 25% with serious implications for the tourism sector. But there's one place along the border that seems to be thriving, the Canadian side of Niagara Falls. I think it's really boosted Canadian tourism and all of our departures in Canada because Canadians are wanting to spend their money at home. Tour operator Christine Geary has witnessed that shift in demand in her business. I think it has really bolstered the patriotic spirit and people wanting to see our country,
being very patriotic and loving our country and wanting to see more of it. And travelers from farther afield are also choosing Canada for similar reasons. As German Torres Rosa Bayer told me, we like the continent north America, but at the moment we don't want to visit the USA because I don't like the political situation there. I haven't visited it before. Now we visit the Atlantic side and perhaps in the future we want also visit the west side. The Gulf between the two countries feels far more stark on the northern shore of Lake Ontario. Unlike at Niagara Falls, here the US isn't even visible on the horizon. Right now there's little evidence that President Trump's attempt to rename the body of water Lake America has caught on in the US states which border it. But regardless of the bonds between the two communities,
the actions of the White House have left many Canadians determined to keep their distance from their southern neighbors. Robin Levinson King reporting from both sides of the US Canada border. At last, let's take you to the streets of Xinjiang in July 2009. Xinjiang and China's far northwest. Those are the sounds of violent clashes between Muslim Uyghurs and the majority ethnic group in China, the Hun Chinese. Those riots left nearly 200 dead and led to a tough crackdown by the communist authorities. That was a pivotal moment for the Uyghurs. After that, the Chinese government severely tightened controls on them, sending many to live in harsh detention camps. In reaction, thousands of Uyghurs fled Xinjiang and estimated 20,000 Uyghurs have now
formed a new community far away in Syria. As you'll hear, it's a community that's managed to alter the course of Syria's modern history. Emily Feng is a senior correspondent with National Public Radio in the US. In her new book, our hearts burned for home, Weeger militants in Syria's civil war. She's tracked the Weeger's journey and, she says, they played a crucial role in the downfall of Bashar Alasad's regime in Syria in 2024. A number of people I interviewed were politically active in Xinjiang. They were students, activists, writers. They were aware of diaspora civil rights movements to argue for greater civil rights for Uyghurs still back in China. And they were hopeful that they could participate in that kind of discourse, particularly if they went to Turkey where a lot of Weeger diaspora live. But the events of July 2009 for a lot of the Weeger's I spoke to convinced them that political, peaceful political change was never going to secure them greater rights and representation in China. And so most of the Weeger's I spoke to,
although they found themselves in Syria largely by circumstance, they very quickly embraced violent resistance. They very quickly looked for ways to train themselves militarily. And they felt because Syria was in the midst of a civil war with many, many different kinds of militias running around who all needed bodies to be frank, that they could easily find people who would take them in despite the fact that they didn't speak Arabic very well at that point and were obviously foreigners. There were foreigners of all sorts that were coming to Syria at the time and joining both sides of the civil war and the Uyghurs became the largest group of foreigners that did so. I mean, so they were involved in the civil war. But you also talk about how they also cat this sort of independent mindset right up until September 2024. Can you take us to that moment and really what changed? Because you said they were affected by the civil war. They were involved into a certain extent. But what role did they play in helping to see an end to the Assad regime?
They've been invited to join Hayat Tahrir Hashan. This is the coalition of militias that the new Syrian president, Akman Al-Shira, was head of. But the Uyghurs never formally joined. They wanted to maintain some distance and be independent. But they were highly respected and they've always been very politically loyal to Al-Shira and that is paid off. And so I found out in the course of my reporting that in the late summer of 2024, the Uyghurs were invited to participate in what was essentially a war council called by Shira on the Turkish border with Syria and he laid out an ambitious plan to mount a rebel offensive to take the city of Aleppo, one of the biggest cities in Syria. And the offensive long story short went so well and they took Aleppo so smoothly that there was a split second decision by the entire rebel coalition under Al-Shira to continue southwards. And we know the end of the story. They marched southwards and they entered the capital of Damascus and on December 8th, 2024, the Assad regime fell. And it was an astonishing turn of events for these
Uyghurs who had arrived essentially as refugees not speaking the language to becoming part of this rebel coalition that overthrew the Assad regime. As you say, they were pivotal to this. They helped to change history, I think you say in the book. What's happened to the Uyghurs now in Syria? And are they still focused on fighting Beijing, on returning to where they came from, or where some of them came from, to Sinha? That is such a good question and it's a very sensitive long among the Uyghur community in Syria because publicly, every single one of them will say our goal is still to fight our way back to China and establish a Uyghur country of our own. But they also know deep down that that is practically and logistically almost impossible. And in Syria, they have opportunity. The Uyghurs I spoke to have since joined the new Syrian Ministry of Defense. They're paid members of the Syrian army that's been reconstituted under Al-Sharaz command. But this is a part-time job. And so a lot of them have gone into strutting their
own businesses. More than half of the Uyghur children in Syria were born in Syria. They've never seen Xinjiang. They've never seen this homeland that their parents talk about. And their ties to Syria for many of them are stronger than their emotional ties to a land that they've never seen before. And so I'm really curious about what the next generation will look like in Syria in terms of their legal ability to stay. I know that there are ongoing conversations between the Syrian government and the Uyghur community as well as between the Syrian government and Beijing about what to do with them. And Beijing quietly has made it clear they do not want these Uyghurs back. There were some reporting that Beijing demanded the deportation of these Uyghurs back to China. That's not happening. The Syrian government is not interested in doing that. These Uyghurs were too loyal to them. They owe them too much. And also China doesn't want several thousand of these battle-hardened militants and their families in China. That would be too much of a risk. So there's now this awkward
conversation of do we let the Uyghurs stay? And if so, under what conditions, what are they allowed to do, not allowed to do, and do we give them passports? Are you aware of the Uyghurs in Syria maintaining ties with relatives in Xinjiang? Are they able to contact them? Do they know what happened to the families that they left behind there? No. To a large extent. No. And one of the common themes that came up was this overwhelming sorrow of not being able to contact their families back in Xinjiang. Some people said that they had downloaded Chinese short video apps so that they could follow videos that their families were posting, but they couldn't message them or call them. Many of them decade, you know, a decade plus later still remember by heart the phone numbers and addresses of their family members, but they've never been able to actually follow up with them. And one of the Uyghur language schools that I visited that the Uyghur militant organization has set up for
for kids under the age of 12. One of the teachers that told me I make it, I put in a lot of effort to teach Uyghur children the words for different family members, like the words for relatives, because no one actually has a grandmother or knows their uncle in Syria. Those people are still back in Xinjiang, but I want to make sure that I teach them the vocabulary for that and the idea behind it, even if none of us have extended family in Syria. And just to understand, they can't contact these people because they would put them in danger if they did. Absolutely. If they contacted their families in Xinjiang, their families would face questioning of not detention and imprisonment. Emily Feng, her new book, Our Hearts Burnt for Home. I'm Celia Hatton, that's it for this edition of NewsHour from the BBC World Service. Thanks for listening.
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