Nuzugum, a young Uyghur girl was laced with chains and driven with thousands of others out of the Kashgar city gates to walk north over the mountains to Illi, a distance of over 1200 kilometres. Uyghur land in the south of East Turkestan, now known as Xinjiang province in China’s farthest Northwest, was being overrun by Manchu-Qing dynasty conquering armies in the early 19th century and local people were forced into the northern reaches of their territory. Many froze to death or died of starvation and ill-treatment along the treacherous route that involved scaling two passes over 5000 meters h…