Balochistan: A life searching rows of unclaimed bodies for missing brothers and sons

Shaila Baloch was only 15 years old when she first walked into a morgue. In the dimly lit room, all she could hear were sobs, whispered prayers, and the shuffling of feet. The first body she saw was that of a man who appeared to have been tortured. His eyes were gone, his teeth had been pulled out, and there were burn marks on his chest.

"I couldn't bear to look at the other bodies, so I walked out," she recalled. But she felt a sense of relief because it wasn't her brother—a police officer who had been missing for nearly a year since his arrest in 2018 during a counter-terrorism operation in Balochistan, one of Pakistan's most restive regions. Inside the morgue, others continued their desperate searches, scanning rows of unclaimed corpses. Shaila soon grew accustomed to this grim routine, revisiting the morgues time and again. They were all the same: flickering fluorescent lights, the air thick with the smell of decay and formaldehyde. Each time she went, she hoped she wouldn't find what she was looking for—seven years later, she still hasn't.

Activists say that in the past two decades, thousands of Baloch people have been forcibly disappeared by Pakistani security forces—allegedly detained without due process, or abducted, tortured, and killed in operations against a decades-long separatist insurgency. The Pakistani government denies these allegations, insisting that many of the missing have joined separatist groups or fled the country. Some have returned years later, physically and mentally scarred, but many have never come back. Others have been found in unmarked graves that have surfaced across Balochistan, their bodies so mutilated that they are unidentifiable.

Then there are the generations of women whose lives have been defined by waiting. Young and old, they attend protests, their faces etched with grief, holding up faded photographs of those who are no longer in their lives. When the BBC met them in their homes, they offered us red tea—Sulaimani chai—in chipped cups, their voices hoarse with sorrow. Many of them insist that their fathers, brothers, and sons are innocent, targeted for daring to speak out against state policies or as objects of collective punishment.

Shaila is one of them. She says that after getting no answers from the police and pleading with politicians about her brother's whereabouts, she began attending protests. Muhammad Asif Baloch was arrested in Nushki, a city near the Afghan border, in August 2018, along with 10 other men. His family saw him on television the next day, looking frightened and disheveled. Authorities said the men were "terrorists fleeing to Afghanistan." Muhammad's family says he was having a picnic with friends. Shaila said Muhammad was her "best friend," humorous and cheerful—"My mother worries she will forget his smile."

On the day he disappeared, Shaila had aced a school exam and was excited to tell her brother, her "biggest supporter." Muhammad had encouraged her to attend university in Quetta, the provincial capital. "I didn't know then that my first trip to Quetta would be to protest for his release," Shaila said. Three of the men detained with her brother were released in 2021, but they didn't reveal what had happened. Muhammad never came home.

A lonely road to nowhere. Entering Balochistan, a province in southwestern Pakistan, feels like stepping into another world. It is vast—covering approximately 44% of the country, it is Pakistan's largest province—and the land is rich in natural gas, coal, copper, and gold. It stretches along the Arabian Sea, across from places like Dubai, which has risen from the sands into a glittering skyline of wealth. But Balochistan remains stuck in the past. Access to many areas is restricted for security reasons, and foreign journalists are often denied entry.

Traveling there is also difficult. The roads are long and lonely, cutting through barren hills and deserts. As the infrastructure dwindles, roads give way to dirt tracks traversed by a handful of vehicles. Electricity is intermittent, and water is even scarcer. Schools and hospitals are rudimentary. In the markets, men sit outside mud-brick shops waiting for the rare customer. Boys who might dream of careers elsewhere in Pakistan talk only of escape: to Karachi, to the Gulf, to anywhere that offers respite from this slow suffocation.

In 1948, Balochistan became part of Pakistan amid the upheaval of the partition of British India—despite opposition from some influential tribal leaders who sought an independent state. Some resistance turned into armed resistance, and over the years, accusations that Pakistan was exploiting the resource-rich region without investing in its development fueled this resistance. Armed groups like the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), which is designated as a terrorist organization by Pakistan and other countries, stepped up attacks: bombings, assassinations, and ambushes targeting security forces became more frequent. Earlier this month, the BLA hijacked a train in Bolan Pass, taking hundreds of passengers hostage. They demanded the release of Balochistan's missing people in exchange for the release of the hostages.

The siege lasted more than 30 hours. According to authorities, 33 BLA militants, 21 hostages, and four military personnel were killed. But conflicting accounts suggest that many passengers remain unaccounted for. It is widely believed that the province's disappearances are part of a strategy by Islamabad to suppress the insurgency—but also to stifle dissent, weaken nationalist sentiment, and undermine support for Balochistan's independence. Many of the disappeared are suspected members or sympathizers of Baloch nationalist groups that demand greater autonomy or independence. But a significant number are ordinary people with no known political affiliations.

Balochistan's Chief Minister Sarfraz Bugti told the BBC that enforced disappearances are a problem, but he dismissed claims of it being widespread as "systematic propaganda." "Every child in Balochistan is told 'missing persons, missing persons.' But who is determining who has made whom disappear? Spontaneous disappearances also exist. How can I prove whether someone has been taken by an intelligence agency, the police, the FC, or anyone else?" Pakistan's military spokesman, Major General Ahmed Sharif, said at a recent press conference that "the state is systematically resolving the issue of missing persons." He repeated official statistics often shared by the government—that of the more than 2,900 enforced disappearances reported in Balochistan since 2011, 80% have been resolved.

Activists believe the number is higher—around 7,000—but there is no single reliable source of data, and it is impossible to verify either side's claims. "Silence is not an option." Women like Jannat Bibi refuse to accept the official figures. She continues to search for her son, Nazar Muhammad, who she says was taken in 2012 while eating breakfast at a hotel. "I have looked for him everywhere. I even went to Islamabad," she said. "All I got was beatings and rejections." The 70-year-old lives in a small mud house on the outskirts of Quetta, not far from a symbolic graveyard commemorating the missing.

Jannat runs a small shop selling biscuits and cartons of milk, and she often cannot afford the bus fare to attend the protests demanding information about the disappeared. But she will borrow money so she can keep going. "Silence is not an option," she said. Most of the men—including the families we spoke to—disappeared after 2006. That year, a key Baloch leader, Nawab Akbar Bugti, was killed in a military operation, leading to increased anti-state protests and armed insurgency. The government cracked down—enforced disappearances increased, as did the number of bodies found on the streets.

In 2014, mass graves of the disappeared were discovered in Tutak—a small town 275 km (170 miles) south of Quetta, near Khuzdar, where Shaila lives. The bodies were mutilated beyond recognition. The images from Tutak shocked the nation—but such horrors were not new to the people of Balochistan. Mahrang Baloch's father, a prominent nationalist leader who fought for the rights of the Baloch people, disappeared in early 2009. Abdul Ghaffar Lango had worked for the Pakistani government but resigned to advocate for what he believed was a safer Balochistan.

Three years later, Mahrang received a call saying that her father's body had been found in the Lasbela district in the south of the province. "When my father's body arrived, he was wearing the same clothes, now tattered. He had been severely tortured," she said. For five years, she had nightmares about his last days. She went to his grave to "convince myself that he was gone, that he was not being tortured." She hugged his grave, "hoping to feel him, but nothing happened." When he was arrested, Mahrang used to write him letters—"lots of letters, I would draw greeting cards and send them to him for Eid." But he returned the cards, saying his cell was not a place for such "pretty" cards. He wanted her to keep them at home. "I still miss his hugs," she said.

Mahrang said that after her father's death, her family's world "collapsed." Then in 2017, her younger brother was taken by security forces, according to the family, and detained for nearly three months. "It was terrifying. I convinced my mother that what happened to my father would not happen to my brother. But it did," Mahrang said. "I was afraid to look at my phone, because there might be news that my brother's body had been found somewhere." She said her mother and she found strength in each other: "Our small house was the safest place for us, and we would sometimes sit there and cry for hours. But outside, we were two strong women who would not be broken."

It was then that Mahrang decided to fight against enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings. Today, the 32-year-old leads protest movements, despite facing death threats, legal cases, and travel bans. "We want the right to live on our own land without persecution. We want our resources, our rights. We want this reign of fear and violence to end." Mahrang warned that enforced disappearances will only fuel more resistance, not suppress it. "They think that dumping bodies will end this. But who can forget losing a loved one in this way? No one can endure this pain." She called for systemic reforms to ensure that no mother sends her child away in fear. "We don't want our children to grow up in protest camps. Is that too much to ask?"

A few weeks after her interview with the BBC, Mahrang was arrested on Saturday morning. This followed her leading a protest after 13 unclaimed bodies—feared to be those of missing persons—were buried in Quetta. Authorities claimed they were militants killed after the Bolan Pass train hijacking, but this could not be independently verified. Earlier, Mahrang had said: "I could be arrested at any time. But I am not afraid. This is not new to us." Even as she fights for the future she wants, a new generation is already on the streets.

Ten-year-old Masuma clutches her schoolbag tightly as she weaves through the crowds of protesters, her eyes scanning every face, searching for one that resembles her father's. "Once, I saw a man and thought he was my father. I ran towards him, then realized he was someone else," she said. "Everyone's father comes home after work. I have never found my father." Masuma was allegedly only three months old when security forces took her father away during a late-night raid in Quetta. Her mother was told he would be back in a few hours. But he never returned.

Today, Masuma spends more time at protests than in the classroom. Her father's photograph is always with her, safely tucked away in her schoolbag. She takes it out to look at before every class. "I always wonder if my father will come home today." Standing outside the protest camp, chanting slogans with the others, her small frame is dwarfed by the crowd of grieving families. After the protests, she sits cross-legged on a thin mat in a quiet corner. The chanting and the din of traffic fade away, and she pulls out her folded letter—a letter she has written but will never be able to send.

Her fingers tremble as she smooths out the creases in the letter, and in a small, uncertain voice, she begins to read. "Dear Baba Jan, when will you come back? Whenever I eat or drink something, I miss you. Baba, where are you? I miss you so much. I am so lonely. I cannot sleep without you. I just want to see you, to see your face."

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