Activist cries for global community's help to ensure Baloch get their due rights

International community must come together to help the people of Balochistan to get their due rights, said Mama Qadeer, Baloch Veteran Human Rights Defender.

"Baloch people are now themselves questioning their status and identity. Thousands of Baloch are becoming victims of target killing for simply raising their voice to demand their due rights," said Mama Qadeer, during a side event at the occasion of 45th UN Human Rights Council Session on Friday.

Urging the global community to act on the human rights violation being committed on Baloch, he said, "It is necessary for people to speak up on the matter as the Baloch, Sindhis or Pashtuns are either killed or vshed. This is the murder of humty."

He also appealed to the international media to give coverage to the human rights violation in Balochistan.

The event titled 'Human Rights Situation in Pakistan ... Balochistan is Bleeding' was orgsed and supported by Center for Gender Justice and Women Empowerment, Baloch Voice Association, Baloch Peoples Congress, Connect Lobbying Associates Brussels, Voice for Baloch Missing Persons (VBMP), African Culture Association.

Balochistan is a resource-rich but least developed province of Pakistan where a movement for freedom is ongoing for the past several decades. Many Baloch believe that the region was independent before 1947 and was forcibly occupied by Pakistan.

Pakistan Army has launched several operations in Balochistan and has supported criminals, which locals call "death squads".

A large number of political activists, intellectuals, women and children in Pakistan's Balochistan province are victims of enforced disappearances by the security agencies.

Many of them are languishing in detention centres whereas mutilated bodies of some of these abducted Baloch are found in isolated places.

( With inputs from ANI )