“It‘s hard for villagers to find their departed families buried in this ground， which has a history of over a century,，” said Mexmut Toxti,， an official of Yakruyk Village,， adding that the area has become disorderly and unsightly after years of exposure to the harsh natural environment,， so that no one wants to put their departed family members here。

This rundown burial ground is one of the 2,，728 old cemeteries distributed throughout the prefecture of Aksu,。 A number of residents worried that they couldn‘t find their family’s graves and had complained to local officials seeking help to improve the environment of the grave sites。

An old cemetery in Uqturpan,， Aksu Prefecture,， northwest China‘s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region， January 6,， 2020,。 /CGTN Photo

“We started planning environmentally-friendly cemeteries here in Uqturpan back in 2005， at the request of over 95 percent of local residents who have their families buried on such dilapidated slopes,，” Halmurat Ismail,， head of the county‘s civil affairs bureau， told us,。 It took a decade to finish building 99 eco-friendly cemeteries across 108 villages,， many of them perched next to the old graveyards for convenient relocation of the graves,。 

An environmentally-friendly cemetery in Uqturpan， Aksu Prefecture,， northwest China‘s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region,， January 6， 2020,。 /CGTN Photo