A cluster of new COVID-19 cases broke out in a clothing factory near a site previously identified as a camp used by Chinese authorities to detain Uighurs.

Xinjiang reported a total of 183 new COVID-19 cases on Wednesday. A cluster linked to the Shuchang garment factory in Kashgar was identified, China Newsweek and Caixin reported.

The first reported case of the cluster was a 17-year-old girl, who did not display any symptoms, according to Caixin.

The factory — established by Chinese authorities as part of a poverty-alleviating policy — is only 10 minutes by car from one of the Uighur reeducation camps identified by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.

Although links between the factory and the nearby camp remained unclear, enterprises set up in the area with the proclaimed aim of alleviating poverty were often tied to the oppressive government, said Dilxat Raxit, spokesperson for the Germany-based World Uyghur Congress.

“People are first brainwashed in the camps and if they are successfully brainwashed, they would be sent to these ‘poverty-alleviating factories’ as cheap labor,” he said.

“The aim is to continue to restrict your freedom and continue to transform you through labor,” he said.

Raxit also worried that other COVID-19 clusters in many similar factories and camps remained unreported.

The Shuchang factory, spanning an area of 500 square meters, was set up in 2018 and had a work force of 287, according to Caixin.

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