Baloch Activists March to Pakistani Capital to Demand End to Extrajudicial Killings  

Activists' banner is displayed near the Islamabad press club, Dec. 20, 2023. (Malik Waqar Ahmed/VOA) Participants in the long march protesting forced disappearances and killings of Baloch made a stop in Dera Ismail Khan, Dec. 20, 2023. (Adnan Bittani/VOA) Supporters of the Baloch protesters' long march block the road outside the press club in Islamabad to push authorities to let the marchers come. (Malik Waqar Ahmed/VOA)

“He was our pampered brother. He would come home at night and put his head in our mother’s lap … If you look at my mother’s condition, it is as if she is dead.” The death of Younus Baloch’s brother, Balaach Mola Bakhsh, in a remote town of Balochistan last month has devastated his family of folk singers. It has also spurred a nearly 1,600-kilometer-long march toward Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad, to draw attention to forced disappearances and extrajudicial killings in the militancy-ravaged province.