Afghanistan's Uyghurs fear the Taliban, and now China too

Earlier this week, as the dust began to settle on the Taliban's blistering takeover of Afghanistan, a small group gathered at a house in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif. The guests arrived discreetly, in ones and twos, keen to avoid attention.

They were elders from the city's Uyghur community, plus some family members and others who joined from different cities via Skype. The mood in the house was fearful. There was only one topic of conversation: escape.

A middle aged man began making calls to activists in Turkey, seeking help. One didn't answer. Another one who did pick up said he would do everything he could for them, but right now there was not much he could do.

The group urged the man calling to keep trying, keep making more calls, but there was no good news. Eventually, after nightfall, the guests left, as carefully as they had arrived, even more despondent than before.

"We have no one to help us right now," one told the BBC after the meeting. "We are terrified," he said. "Everyone is terrified."

Like millions of other Afghans, the country's Uyghurs are waking up to a different reality this week, one in which the Taliban is in charge. Like other Afghans, the Uyghurs fear a worse existence under the Taliban. But they also fear something else: greater influence for China.