Pakistan: Alarming surge in forced disappearances in Balochistan

Quetta [Pakistan], November 18 (ANI): Six more individuals have been reportedly detained by Pakistani forces in Balochistan and Dera Ghazi Khan, further exacerbating the already alarming rise in enforced disappearances across the region this month, The Balochistan Post reported.
According to the Balochistan Post, two men from the Mashkay area in Balochistan's Nookjo locality were detained by Pakistani forces on November 11. Their whereabouts remain unknown.
In a separate incident in Kech district, two other men, Wahab and Sameer, were taken into custody while hunting in Buleda. Relatives of the men claim that they were transferred to a military facility and have been missing ever since.
Further, in Dera Ghazi Khan, a region with a significant Baloch population under Punjab's administration, two more individuals--Azam Jan Marri and Nabi Lal were forcibly disappeared.Local sources note that Nabi Lal's father, Qaisar Marri, was killed by Pakistani forces in 2012.
Advocacy organisations are sounding the alarm over the growing number of enforced disappearances in Balochistan. A total of 33 cases have been reported so far this month, while the Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC) and Voice for Baloch Missing Persons (VBMP) documented 127 disappearances in October. Although some individuals have been released, many others remain unaccounted for.
The Balochistan Post reported that in response to this surge, the BYC issued a statement calling for the intervention of international human rights organisations, urging them to act against what they described as "systematic state repression and genocide" of the Baloch people.
The statement highlighted that "state repression and human rights violations have left no family in Balochistan untouched," and called for global action to address these grave violations.
In a separate development, the Baloch Voice for Justice (BVJ) has launched a campaign to mark the 11th anniversary of the disappearance of Saifullah Rodeni, a police constable from Surab. Rodeni was forcibly taken on November 22, 2013, while traveling from Surab to Khuzdar, and his fate remains unknown. The BVJ is urging activists, journalists, and students to join the campaign to raise awareness and pressure authorities for Rodeni's recovery.
This ongoing wave of disappearances has raised deep concerns about the scale of human rights abuses in Balochistan, underscoring the urgent need for accountability and international intervention to address these violations. (ANI)