The US Justice Department made the announcement on Wednesday.

Beijing has in the past demanded that Uighurs held at Guantanamo be returned to China. The US government has said it could not do so because they would face persecution, and has searched for months for countries willing to accept them.

"We resolutely oppose the United States sheltering the suspects in a third country, and oppose any country taking them in in any way," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang told a regular news conference.

"We have sent our strong representations to the related countries," Qin added.

Uighurs are a Turkic-speaking Muslim people native to China's far western region of Xinjiang. Many chafe at Chinese controls on their religion and culture.

Last year, Xinjiang's regional capital Urumqi was wracked by violence between Uighurs and majority Han Chinese, in which at least 200 people died.

The two men transferred were Arkin Mahmud and Bahtiyar Mahmud, according to their lawyer. They will live in the canton of Jura in northwestern Switzerland.

The Uighurs were swept up by the US government during the Afghanistan war launched after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.

There are five Uighurs left at the Guantanamo facility.

Four other Uighurs were resettled in Bermuda while Albania took five, and six went to the Pacific island of Palau, which has also offered to take the remaining five.