Chinese officials have admitted that birth rates have plummeted among its ethnic Uighurs, fuelling claims that Beijing is subjecting its Muslim minority to a campaign of forced abortion and sterilisation.

Official statistics show that in Xinjiang, the northwestern province where most of the country’s 10 million Uighurs live, birth rates dropped by almost a third in 2018. The statistics follow accusations that Beijing is trying to reduce the Uighur population by threatening women with fines or spells in mass-detention camps if they flout harsh so-called “family-planning” measures.