Beijing (CNN) Thousands of Uyghur Muslims are currently being detained in cramped conditions at so-called political education camps in China's restive far-western region of Xinjiang -- and the trend shows no sign of abating, exiled Uyghur activists and human rights advocacy groups say.

"Every household, every family had three or four people taken away," said Omer Kanat, executive committee chairman of the World Uyghur Congress, an umbrella group for the Uyghur diaspora.

"In some villages, you can't see men on the streets anymore -- only women and children -- all the men have been sent to the camps."

One recent news report put the number of Uyghurs confined at 120,000 in "overcrowded and squalid" conditions in just one prefecture in southern Xinjiang. Radio Free Asia , a US Congress-funded station known for its extensive Uyghur reporting, attributed the figure to an anonymous security official in Kashgar.

Tensions have remained high in Xinjiang -- a resource-rich area long inhabited by the Turkic-speaking ethnic Uyghurs -- following a spate of violent attacks in recent years. The Chinese authorities have blamed the incidents on Muslim Uyghur separatists seeking to establish an independent state.

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