At UNHRC session, Mahan Baloch delivers emotional plea urging international community to act against enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings in Balochistan.
Geneva [Switzerland], March 29: In a moving address at the 58th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), Baloch activist Mahan Baloch called for urgent international intervention to end what she described as a “systematic campaign of enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings, and collective punishment” being carried out by the Pakistani state in Balochistan.
“I stand before you not just as a young Baloch girl, but as a voice of thousands of families torn apart by injustice,” she declared, her voice heavy with emotion.
Representing the Baloch National Movement (BNM), Mahan’s plea brought the humanitarian crisis in Balochistan into sharp focus. She recounted chilling stories of families shattered by state violence, with fathers vanishing without a trace, brothers returning as mutilated corpses, and mothers waiting endlessly for answers that never come.
“In my homeland, Balochistan, pain has become a way of life,” she said. “Our mothers search endlessly, clutching faded photographs, waiting for justice that never comes.”
Citing specific examples of suffering, Mahan mentioned Samideen, who has waited since 2009 for her father’s return, and Maharang Baloch, who found her father’s bullet-riddled body abandoned by the roadside.
She condemned the violent suppression of peaceful protests, where grieving families are met with batons, arrests, and silence, simply for demanding accountability.
“How long will the world remain silent? How long will our tears be ignored?” she asked the council.
Mahan concluded her speech with a heartfelt appeal to the international community:
“The people of Balochistan need more than your sympathy. They need your action. Raise your voice where ours is silenced. Stand with us before it’s too late.”
The Baloch National Movement shared her intervention on social media platform X, stating, “Mahan Baloch urged the council to take notice of human rights violations in Balochistan.”
Her testimony has added pressure on global human rights bodies to acknowledge and investigate the systemic abuses in Balochistan, where calls for justice have long been met with violent repression.