Acts of courage – by Zofeen T. Ebrahim

Relatives reach Karachi on foot from Balochistan to raise their voice against tyranny and oppression. Hapless, they vow to march to Islamabad from here

Roughly, 18,000 Baloch nationalists have gone missing, including doctors, professors, politicians and students. Photos by the author.

“My father was talking on the phone, when a group of men suddenly came and started kicking and beating him up. All this happened in the blink of an eye and then they whisked him away. I and my uncle (the latter was just 13 then) were left completely shaken,” recalled 10-year old Ali Haider, while narrating the tale of how his father Ramzan Baloch was picked up.

No justice for the missing Balochs

Many of the 18,000 missing persons from the province could be dead

For Sammi (16), it was not the gruelling 27- day march from Quetta to Karachi that was a problem. “It was nothing compared to the torture my family and I have gone through in the last four years since my father went missing,” she said.

Sammi is one of the 12 women who walked for 27 days, covering a distance of 700 km, to protest against the treatment meted out to their male family members. “If there is another long march I will walk again. They picked up my father from a hospital in Mashkay at 1 am. We don’t know anything about him after that,” she said, speaking over the phone from Karachi.