๐๐๐ฅ๐จ๐๐ก๐ข๐ฌ๐ญ๐๐งโ๐ฌ ๐๐ง๐๐ฅ๐๐ฌ๐ฌ ๐๐๐๐ซ๐๐ก ๐๐จ๐ซ ๐ญ๐ก๐ ๐ฅ๐จ๐ฏ๐๐ ๐จ๐ง๐๐ฌ.
๐๐๐ฉ๐จ๐ซ๐ญ ๐จ๐ง ๐๐ง๐ญ๐๐ซ๐ง๐๐ญ๐ข๐จ๐ง๐๐ฅ ๐๐๐ฒ ๐จ๐ ๐๐ข๐๐ญ๐ข๐ฆ๐ฌ ๐จ๐ ๐ ๐จ๐ซ๐๐ข๐๐ฅ๐ฒ ๐๐ข๐ฌ๐๐ฉ๐ฉ๐๐๐ซ๐๐
Every year on 30 August, the world observes the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances to remember those who were illegally detained by the states, their whereabouts remain unknown and to stand with the families who continue to search for them. For many families in Balochistan, however, this is not simply a day of remembrance. It is a reality they live with every single day.
For years, enforced disappearances have remained one of the most painful and persistent human rights issues in Balochistan. Following the occupation of Balochistan, the Baloch people have continued to resist the colonial rule through political and national struggle. In response, the Pakistani state has been committing numerous human rights violations, ranging from brutal repression to enforced disappearances. The disappearance of students, political activists, journalists, intellectuals, human rights defenders and ordinary young men has become one of the most deeply troubling features of the conflict.
People have been missing after being taken by Pakistani intelligence services from their homes, workplaces, universities, roads and other public places. In many cases, families have witnessed the involvement of security and intelligence personnel, including the CTD, MI and ISI, with FC personnel also accompanying them. There have also been disappearances carried out by state-backed death squads in different parts of Balochistan. Yet behind every disappearance is not merely a case file or a statistic, but a family left suspended between hope and despair. They do not know whether their loved one is alive, being held somewhere, or has become another name on the long and painful list of the missing.
Zarina, the wife of forcibly disappeared Shabir Baloch, who was the information secretary of BSO Azad, once expressed this uncertainty in a question that captures the suffering of countless families. She told the media that she still did not know whether she was Shabirโs wife or his widow. Years after a person disappears, families remain trapped in precisely this uncertainty. They cannot properly mourn, nor can they move forward. Their lives are placed on hold. The true scale of the crisis remains difficult to establish because there is no single, transparent and comprehensive record of all cases. Many cases remain undocumented because families face pressure, fear and threats. Others disappear from public attention when the victims are later found dead, their bodies recovered from unknown locations and their cases reduced to another tragedy. We therefore maintain that the actual number of missing persons is considerably higher than the cases that reach the media or are formally documented.
According to Amnesty International, citing figures from the Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances, 2,752 cases from Balochistan had been recorded between 2011 and January 2024. Yet even these figures cannot capture the full extent of the crisis, as many families remain reluctant or unable to report disappearances because of fear, pressure and threats.
The situation has not improved in recent years. According to the Human Rights Council of Balochistan, 1,482 cases of enforced disappearance were documented in Balochistan during 2025, representing a significant increase from the previous year. 108 are minors among those disappeared during that year. In the first seven months of 2026, HRCB documented another 793ย cases: 107 in January, 234 in February, 65 in March, 124 in April, 95 in May, 63 in June and 105 in July. These figures, record violations in Balochistan and point to the continuing scale of the crisis. While from 2016 to 2026 HRCB reported more 9000+ cases.
The Paank recorded 550+ cases of enforced disappearances in first half of 2026 while 227 recorded cases of extrajudicial killings. However we have recorded more than 600 cases of enforced disappearances within first half o this year. The number may be high, large number of cases are not reported due to severe harassment and threatening to families.
What makes the current situation particularly disturbing is the increasing number of students and young people being forcibly disappeared. Universities and educational institutions should be spaces for learning, intellectual development, discussion and the exchange of ideas. Instead, they have increasingly become places associated with fear. Students have been victims after participating in political or social activities, while their families are left searching for answers and asking the same unanswered question: where has their loved one been taken?
The violations are not limited to forcible abductions. Families also find themselves caught in a complicated system in which their loved ones may later appear in fabricated FIRs or other so-called legal cases. Parents are forced to move between police stations, courts and government offices, searching for information and demanding the production of their sons, brothers or husbands. Often, they receive no meaningful answer. Months turn into years, and the uncertainty remains.
More recently, women and children among thoseย disappeared in Balochistan are increasing.ย Theย disappearance of women and children has deepened concerns about human rights violations in Balochistan and about the expanding nature of the crisis. When even children are not spared, the question is no longer simply about individual disappearances; it becomes a question about the broader impact of repression, colonialismย and brutalities on entire families.
For families, the pain does not end when someone disappears, it continues for years. A mother keeps waiting for her son. A wife waits for her husband. Children grow up without knowing where their father is. Brothers and sisters grow older while continuing to ask the same question.
This crisis is further aggravated by the patternย of “kill and dump”, in which individuals areย disappeared and later found dead, with their bodies recovered from different locations.
The issue cannot be reduced to statistics. Every number represents a human being, and every disappearance creates a family crisis. Statistics can tell us how many cases have been reported, but they cannot measure the years of uncertainty experienced by a mother waiting at the door, the financial difficulties faced by a family after its main provider disappears, or the psychological burden carried by children who grow up asking where their father has gone.
The continued existence of thousands of unresolved cases raises serious questions about accountability under international law. The prolonged nature of these cases, the absence of information about the whereabouts of victims and the suffering imposed on their families demand serious attention from international human rights institutions.
The International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances therefore carries a particular significance in Balochistan. It is a reminder that those who have disappeared must not become forgotten names and that their families must not be left alone in their search for truth.
The demands of these families are neither complicated nor unreasonable. They want to know where their loved ones are. They want to know whether they are alive. If they have been detained, they want them to be brought before a court. If they have died, they deserve to know the truth and to receive justice. Yet for years, these basic demands have remained largely unanswered, while the international community has failed to give the crisis the attention that its scale demands.
No state should have the power to make a person disappear and leave a family without an answer. No mother should spend years searching for her child. No student should disappear simply for exercising their voice. And no family should be forced to live between hope and grief because the truth has been denied to them.
On 30 August, the world remembers the victims of enforced disappearance. In Balochistan, however, families are still waiting. They are still searching. They are still demanding answers. And they continue to resist the silence surrounding the fate of their loved ones. On this day, BSO Azad remembers every forcibly disappeared person who are suffering the tortures and brutality of the Pakistani state, and commemorate those brave families who have been resisting this crime and raised their voice against enforced disappearances in Balochistan. This struggle for the Liberation of Balochistan will continue with broader strength and no brutal policy of the occupying state will ever shatter this period of resistance.