Pakistan: Families of missing Baloch people hold protest in Karachi against enforced disappearances

Karachi [Pakistan], February 17 (ANI): The families of missing Baloch people held a protest in Pakistan’s Karachi against the increasing wave of enforced disappearances of Baloch children, women and youth. The families of missing Baloch people have called for the intervention of the United Nations and other international communities so that action is taken in the interest of justice.

During the protest, the Baloch people held banners with pictures of their missing family members. The protesters called for the release of the family members who have been missing.

People carried placards with text which reads, “UN and Amnesty when will you take actions against enforced disappearance, “Same stories with different people. Same posters with different pictures.”

Earlier this month, World Sindhi Congress United Kingdom and Europe organizer Hidayat Bhutto said that enforced disappearances are still continuing in Pakistan’s Sindh province and that until now thousands of Sindhis, political workers and human rights activists have disappeared.

“The practice of enforced disappearance is still going on and hundreds and thousands of Sindhis, political workers, human rights activists have disappeared,” Bhutto said during the CHRAPA side event on the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) Process in Pakistan. The human rights activist disregarded the claims made by Sindh authorities of resolving 7,000 out of 9,200 cases of enforced disappearance. He questioned the claims by asking how many people have been punished if 7,000 cases of disappearances have been resolved.

During the World Sindhi Congress (WSC) organised cabinet meeting in the UK, Hidayat Bhutto called Pakistan’s claims false. “The working group of UN on enforced disappearances and involuntary disappearances, including eight more special reporters have jointly raised their concerns in a joint statement which was made public in 2021,” Bhutto said.

The event in the UK was organised on the sidelines of the Universal Periodic Review of Pakistan done by the United Nations to judge the human rights violations by the country.