Mariam, a 11-year-old girl from Mach, a town in Balochistan, whose father was forcibly disappeared, spent more than a month in a protest camp in December 2023. She made the journey from Mach to the federal capital, Islamabad, with her aunt and hundreds of other Baloch protestors.
Her tiny hands carried a picture: a bearded man holding a toddler in one hand, his other hand raised in what could have been a goodbye. Could Akhtar have ever envisioned that the toddler in his arms would one day be sleeping outside in the cold of Islamabad, where the temperature dropped to 4 degrees, searching for him? Was this farewell meant for her?
Mariam is not alone. Thousands of Baloch families have endured the same fate for decades, as Pakistan’s security forces continue their brutal campaign of enforced disappearances. Her father is one of the thousands of missing persons from Balochistan—Pakistan’s largest province.
According to the Voice for Baloch Missing Persons (VBMP), a NGO advocating on behalf of victim families, there are more than 5,000 cases of enforced disappearances across the province however there's no complete database for the cases due to lack of transparency, government interference and lack of access to the region for human rights group.
Paank, the HR branch of Baloch National Movement, a Baloch nationalist political organization, started to maintain an online database. The database includes cases reported to Paank as well as those reported on social media sites such as X.
“We have people all around Balochistan who give us information. We also have a data collection team which works on categorizing the data according to the area. Often families approach us to highlight their cases”, said Jamal Baloch, a member of Paank. He mentioned that the data collection process is ridden with challenges because they are unable to work openly.
“There was a time when we used to send our data collection team on the ground. One of our data collection team members was abducted and killed in a fake encounter. We do not have open access so often our data collection team on the ground works undercover”, said Baloch.
A History Of Repression and Rebellion
Balochistan has been embroiled in an insurgency for more than two decades. Separatist groups like the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) and the Balochistan Liberation Front (BLF) are fighting the Pakistani state for greater autonomy over their resource-rich region.
In the last couple of years there has also been a surge in insurgent attacks in Balochistan.
Data from Armed Conflict Location & Event Data (ACLD), a non-profit organization specializing in conflict data collection, shows that 732 acts of political violence by Baloch separatists groups were carried out in 2024, a dramatic rise from 214 in 2023. February, the month when Pakistanis hit the polls amid a charged-up political atmosphere, witnessed the highest number of attacks followed by August, Pakistan’s independence month.
Baloch people have long complained of rights abuses, political and economic marginalization, despite the region’s vast mineral wealth. This ongoing insurgency is not the first—there have been four previous rebellions. But in the latest iteration, which began in the early 2000s, Pakistani security services have been accused of widespread enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings of Baloch men.
One such case resulted in widespread protests across Balochistan, as Baloch women, children, and men marched from cities, towns, and villages to the capital, Islamabad.
The Baloch Long March
Balach Mola Bakhsh, a 24-year-old student from Turbat, was taken away by the counter-terrorism department on October 29, 2023. His family was unaware of his whereabouts for almost a month before authorities claimed he had been caught in possession of explosives and presented in court. However, a day before his bail plea was scheduled, Bakhsh was one of four men found dead. Police labeled them as “terrorists” from a “proscribed group” killed in a shootout.
His killing ignited widespread protests. Protests started in Turbat as his family demanded a police report to be registered against the Counter Terrorism Department officials involved in the case however due to lack of action the protesters decide to march to the capital of Balochistan, Quetta.
After staging a sit-in in Quetta during which negotiations with the adminstration didn't result in any negotiations, rights group Baloch Yakhjeti Committee (Baloch Solidarity Committee), led by Mahrang Baloch, decided to march to the federal capital, Islamabad. Along the way they stopped at several remote towns and villages. When they reached Islamabad, they were faced with a crackdown but managed to camp outside the National Press Club for almost a month, demanding an end to enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings in Balochistan.
Tracing the Baloch Long March
Balach's killing sparked widespread protests. Protesters marched from Turbat to Quetta, and then continued their journey to the capital, Islamabad, passing through remote villages and towns.
“BYC’s decision to march first to Quetta [Balochistan’s capital] and then to Islamabad through villages, towns, and cities resulted in mass mobilization, visible in the protests across Balochistan, Karachi, Tunsa, and Dera Ghazi Khan. The numbers and locations of these protests are unprecedented,” said Zafar Musyani, a Baloch researcher.
Counting the Disappeared
What further aggravates the crisis of enforced disappearances is the absence of a complete dataset. Baloch human rights organizations estimate the number of disappeared to be over 5,000, while the Pakistani government continues to downplay the issue.
According to Zain Shah, a Pakistan researcher at Armed Conflict Location & Event Data (ACLED), an independent non-profit organization that collects data on conflicts, there are “10 to 20 [cases] across the province” on a weekly basis, with “20 being a very high number.”
ACLED has been tracking enforced disappearances in Balochistan since 2018. “We’re both back coding and coding live,” Shah said, adding that while the data won’t be published anytime soon, the organization is collecting “all the detail there is.”
After more than a year of the Baloch Long March, Balochistan is once again seeing protests against the extrajudicial killings in Turbat, including the killing of Mehraj Baloch and Karim Baloch, two teenagers from Balochistan.