乌鲁木齐的心理学家夏说:“有些伤口甚至连时间都无法愈合。”。过去十年来，她一直在治疗数百名因2009年7月5日中国首都新疆骚乱而患有创伤后应激障碍(PTSD)的患者。这场导致197人死亡、1700多人受伤的杀戮狂欢使这座城市陷入震惊和恐慌，并在幸存者和目击者的心中留下了不可磨灭的伤疤。

夏说，人类造成的创伤比自然灾害造成的创伤更难治愈，因为在令人毛骨悚然的暴力中，人们之间的信任已经恶化。

1990年至2016年间，数以千计的恐怖袭击困扰着广袤的新疆大地。大量无辜者在可怕的刺杀、枪击和爆炸中丧生。对于幸存者来说，心理上的损失可以和身体上的伤亡相媲美。夏告诉，患有创伤后应激障碍的人从中学生到80岁以上的老人都有。

当创伤的症状没有消失时，人们别无选择，只能继续前进。2014年7月30日伊德卡清真寺遇刺的幸存者米雷梅特詹·罗齐(Mirexmetjan Rozi)再也没有回到位于喀什市中心的清真寺。那一天，三名恐怖分子出现，将他推开，并砍伤了伊玛目朱梅·塔伊尔的脖子和头部。他在大腿被刺伤后没能救下朱梅·塔伊尔，此后一直悲痛欲绝。“光是想想就让我出一身冷汗，想哭。”

在800多公里外，2014年9月轮台县炸弹袭击的目击者和幸存者迪尔凯默·图尔孙正在作为康复治疗师帮助人们。21岁时，她和家人一起购物时因爆炸失去了一条腿。“我听到我侄子在哭，我妈妈在喊救命。然后，我发现自己凝视着我的断腿，”她回忆道。在那之后的几个月里，她无法入睡，被噩梦围困。

对她来说，对恐怖分子的仇恨和宽恕交织在一起。“他们一定是被暴力视频洗脑了。我觉得他们也是受害者。”

迪尔凯默带着她的创伤生活着，希望有一天能拿到驾照，买辆车。她最大的梦想是为全家买一栋更大的房子。

尽管当地居民为该地区的恐怖主义付出了高昂的代价，但前线的居民不断面临死亡的威胁。当警察处理使用从自制炸弹到AK-47等武器的恐怖分子时，他们在工作中失去了许多同事。

1998年4月，警察龙飞在对伊犁地区一户涉嫌藏匿武器的家庭的突袭中丧生。他是领导袭击恐怖分子藏身地的班长，但在恐怖分子开枪击中他的脖子时被击毙。更大的侮辱是，龙的枪被一名恐怖分子偷走，这名恐怖分子逃跑了，两个月后他被用来谋杀两名警察，孔永强和努尔塔·安维尔戈。在那次袭击中，这名恐怖分子在试图从窗户逃走时被枪杀。

三名警察的牺牲没有白费。退休警官Abduraxman Peyzi说，他们为新疆的稳定献出了生命。

由于该地区的混乱，仅仅作为一名警察就成为了目标。一天晚上，许达贝迪·托克蒂的女儿看到恐怖分子砍死了她的父亲，一名警察，然后他们在她哥哥试图救他们的父亲时杀死了他。佩里德姆说，当她看到人们穿红色衣服时，她仍然感到不安，因为这让她想起了她当时看到的血。

随着各种形式的暴力袭击变得更加普遍，对普通人和警察的这些袭击导致该地区的安全得到加强。新疆公安厅副厅长雅群亚库普在接受CGTN采访时表示，恐怖分子的手段已经变得越来越“残忍”，他们使用了从刀片和枪支到自杀式爆炸的任何东西。他首次向CGTN展示了1999年从恐怖组织“库雷什”手中缴获的5000枚自制手榴弹，以及2006年缴获的15000件武器，其中一些是从国外走私来的。

在打击这些“暴力恐怖分子”的斗争中，雅群·雅库普说，执法人员正在尽一切努力打击由极端主义助长的猖獗的恐怖主义。

我们纪录片的目的是让人们看到笼罩在中国最西部地区的暴力，并记住在与助长死亡和绝望的危险意识形态的持续斗争中丧生的人和幸存者。

"Some wounds even time can't heal," Xia Yeling, an Urumqi-based psychologist said. For the past decade, she has been treating hundreds of patients suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) due to the July 5 riots in 2009 in the capital city of China's Xinjiang. The killing sprees that resulted in 197 deaths and over 1,700 injures plunged the city into shock and panic, and etched indelible scars in the hearts of survivors and witnesses.

Traumas inflicted by humans are harder to heal than those from natural disasters, according to Xia, because trust between people has deteriorated in the midst of blood-curdling violence.

Between 1990 and 2016, thousands of terrorist attacks plagued the vast land of Xinjiang. Large numbers of innocent lives were lost in horrific stabbings, shootings and bombings. For survivors, the psychological toll could rival that of physical casualties. Xia told CGTN that those suffering from PTSD range from middle school students to seniors over 80 years old.

When symptoms of trauma don't go away, people have no alternative but to move on. Mirexmetjan Rozi, a survivor of the Id Kah Mosque assassination on July 30, 2014, has never returned to the mosque seated in the city center of Kashgar. On that day, three terrorists appeared, pushed him away and hacked at Imam Jume Tayir's neck and head. He failed to save Jume Tayir after he was stabbed in the thigh and has been grieving ever since. "Just thinking about it makes me break out in a cold sweat and want to cry."

Over 800 kilometers away, Dilqemer Tursun, both a witness and survivor of the bomb attacks in Luntai County of September 2014, is helping people as a rehabilitation therapist. At 21 years old, she lost her leg to an explosion while shopping with her family. "I heard my nephew crying and my mom yelling for help. Then I found myself gazing at my severed leg," she recalled. For months after that, she couldn't sleep, besieged by nightmares.

For her, there's an intertwined feeling of hate and forgiveness for the terrorist. "They must have been brainwashed by the violent videos. I think they are also victims."

Dilqemer lives on with her trauma, hoping to get a driver’s license and buy a car one day. Her greatest dream is to buy a bigger house for the whole family.

While residents have paid dearly for terrorism in the region, those on the frontlines constantly face the threat of death. As police deal with terrorists who use weapons ranging from homemade bombs to AK-47s, they have lost many colleagues in the line of duty.

In April 1998, police officer Long Fei lost his life during a raid on a household in Yili prefecture that was suspected of harboring a cache of weapons. He was a squad leader that led the attack on the terrorist hideout, but was killed when terrorists opened fire and shot him in the neck. In what turned out to be an even greater insult to his memory, Long's gun was stolen by a terrorist who fled and was later used to murder two policemen, named Kong Yongqiang and Nurtay Anwerbeg, two months later. During that assault, the terrorist was shot while attempting to escape through a window.

The sacrifice of the three police officers was not in vain. Retired police officer Abduraxman Peyzi said they had given their lives for Xinjiang's stability.

Due to the chaos in the region, simply being a police officer made one a target. The daughter of Xudaberdi Toxti saw terrorists hack her father, a policeman, to death one night, then they killed her brother when he tried to save their father. Peridem said she still feels uneasy when she sees people wearing red since it reminds her of the blood she saw then.

These attacks on regular people and police led to increased security in the region as all manner of violent attacks became more prevalent. Yalqun Yaqup, deputy director general of the Xinjiang Public Security Department, said in an interview with CGTN that the terrorists' methods have become increasingly "brutal" as they use anything from blades and guns to suicide bombings. He showed CGTN for the first time ever a cache of 5,000 homemade grenades seized in 1999 from the terrorist group "Kuresh," as well as 15,000 weapons seized in 2006, some of which were smuggled from abroad.

In the fight against these "violent terrorists," Yalqun Yalqup said law enforcement personnel are doing all they can to fight against rampant terrorism fueled by extremism.

The aim of our documentary is to shine a light on the violence that wracks the far-western region of China, and remember both the individuals who have lost their lives and the survivors in the continuing struggle against the dangerous ideologies that fuel death and despair.