Hundreds of Chinese Students Locked Down at School for Weeks; Parents Lose Contact

Parents seeking information meet with beatings and arrest from police

Police suppress the parents seeking help from Renze government about their children being locked up inside Renze No. 2 High School for more than a week without proper food and medical care on Oct. 30, 2022. Video screenshot

Hundreds of students at a Chinese high school have been kept in lockdown for over two weeks in the school’s dorms, and some have been transferred to unknown locations. Worried parents seeking information about their children have been met with police beatings and arrests. The dramatic situation comes amid public unrest as millions in China face new or continued lockdowns under the regime’s “Zero-COVID” policy.

The students attend Renze No. 2 school, a combined middle and high school, in Xingtai, in northern China’s Hebei Province. The school has been locked down, with all students kept inside the dorms, since Oct. 21. 

Some students have been transferred to various locations. Parents were not notified of the transfer, and some parents have lost contact with their children, a parent told The Epoch Times’ Chinese language edition on Nov. 2. They could only share information among themselves as word spread on the evening of Oct. 29 that students had left the school.

Police Beat, Arrest Parents

About 200 parents gathered in front of the district town hall seeking help on the morning of Oct. 30. Cell phone video taken by bystanders shows police in riot gear confronting parents. The video shows at least three parents on the ground after apparently having been beaten. Some parents were arrested.

Anxious Parents Ignored

The Epoch Times spoke with “Cheri,” a parent who asked not to be named. She is the mother of a junior high student at Renzi No. 2 school. Cheri said there are 12 classes in each grade, with about 50 students in each class. “Students of [her child’s] grade have all been relocated. We don’t know about other grades,” she said.

In China, most students from 9th through 12th grade stay at school during the weekdays to save travel time.

Cheri said that no one from the government seemed to care about the parents’ concerns. “If someone would come to discuss with the parents, there would not have been conflict,” she said.

Cheri said that parents were never informed of the specific cause of the lockdown.

Students at Renze No. 2 School in Hebei Province stay in one room, with no beds and no restroom, during the school lockdown that started on Oct. 21, 2022. Provided by anonymous parent

Unsanitary Conditions, Insufficient Food

Parents turned to social and news media as their only means of getting help for their children.

One parent issued a post addressed to the school on the Chinese social media app Weibo, pleading that parents are not trying to cause trouble, simply hoping to obtain proper medical treatment and isolation conditions for their children.

A video posted online shows a parent attempting to deliver food, using a long pole with a knapsack to reach students behind barred windows on the school’s second floor.

Another video circulating online showed students calling for help through the school’s windows. A woman can be heard crying in the background.

What little information Cheri has comes from her child’s reports. She emphasized that she is one of the lucky ones: many parents are still unable to reach their children.

Some parents have attempted to send food, supplies, and cell phones to the students, but found that the supplies did not reach the students.

Food at the locked-down school is insufficient, and medical supplies, with the exception of thermometers, are non-existent. The students were given PCR tests, but no results have been made available. Cheri’s child registered a temperature of 102°F.

“We don’t know what the school is trying to hide. Are all the kids infected? We know nothing,” Cheri said.

Cheri was told that all the students, infected or not infected, are being housed together.

Photos she posted on social media show at least a dozen students kept in one room, with no beds or toilet. A chair has been converted into an improvised toilet seat, and excrement packed in black plastic bags is piled up in the corner.

‘We Are Really Scared’

One of the locked-down students posted on Weibo: “Teachers locked the doors, and said it’s for our own good. But we are really scared.”

Cheri says she is feeling increasingly desperate and knows that every second counts. “We want to save our children.”

The Epoch Times reached out to the Renze district government for comment and was told to contact the local Propaganda Department. However, the number provided was a fax number. Subsequent calls to the Renze district Center for Disease Control were met with busy signals.

Xia Song and Hong Ning contributed to this report.