January 4, 2024
Staff report
ISLAMABAD
Marching in the cold from Turbat to Quetta and then to Islamabad, and facing the full brunt of state contempt in the Capital, Baloch protesters have dug in their heels outside the National Press Club in perhaps the biggest and most compelling people’s movement. And the reason why it is so compelling is that it was Baloch women and children who mobilized and spearheaded the march from perhaps Pakistan’s most deprived province to the doorstep of the government’s stronghold.
Like their mothers, the children of families affected by enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings are mustering courage and tenacity from the bottomless depths of their hearts, demanding that the state to “live and let live”. Among them is 13-year-old Abdul Nabi Baloch, who had to sacrifice a childhood meant for classrooms and playgrounds to protest camps and sit-ins for the recovery of his older brother Sanwal Khan.
Like every other child, Nabi’s heart yearns to study in a school, make memories with friends and grow up to be someone important. But his small hands no longer clasp books but rather posters of his missing brother.
His mother Jannat Bibi explains that when one vanishes, it becomes their family and loved ones’ life-long mission to find them.
“When my older son disappeared, my youngest’s life also ended. He is with me at every protest, because of which he could not continue with his education. His life’s purpose is to recover his brother now,” she told Voicepk.net. “People should understand that the loss of one person destroys an entire family.”
11-year-old Seerat was born into a world of rallies and sit-ins. For the past nine years, she has been a fixture of missing persons protests, holding posters and chanting the name of her father Meher Gul Marri. Her words are stilted and broken, but even then she speaks for an end to enforced disappearances.
Mahzaib Baloch is 15 years old. She was nine when she attended her first protest for the recovery of her uncle Rashid Hussain – six years on and with radio silence from the state as to the fate of her uncle, she marches on without any hint of uncertainty in her stride. She tells Voicepk.net that the state itself has planted and cultivated hatred in the hearts of children at the camp.
Sammi Deen Baloch, who is among the organizers of the march and sit-in outside the National Press Club, was 11 years old when her father, Dr. Deen Baloch was picked up by plainclothes men in broad daylight. She was 15 when she attended her first rally, and now as a young woman is a face of the human cost of enforced disappearances in Balochistan.
Speaking from experience, she says that it is the children who bear the most burden and experience the most trauma of the families of missing persons.
Every family at the Baloch protest in Islamabad has its own story to tell, but many of its youngest participants only have photos and the stories their mothers and older siblings have told them as evidence that they ever had a father or a brother.