Up to 200,000 Baloch people gathered in Gwadar, southwest Pakistan, on Sunday 28 July to join a Baloch Raji Machi (National Gathering). In response, Pakistani forces have sealed off the city and killed at least four protesters, injuring many more.
The event, organised by the Baloch independence movement, aims to address the oppression Baloch people face in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran. The movement struggles for self-determination for the Baloch people, and aims for a separation of Balochistan from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran. The Pakistani government has responded to the movement’s protests with violence, including the torture and disappearance of thousands of political prisoners.
For three days, the Pakistani army has blocked the roads to the gathering and put it under siege. People have been trapped under record high temperatures and with little access to water. The army also opened fire on the protesters trying to get to the gathering and drove armoured vehicles into the crowd, killing at least 4 people and injuring many more.
The numbers of dead, injured and arrested are not yet known, as mobile phone networks and the internet are greatly restricted and partially shut down altogether.
The Democratic Youth of Syria sent a message greeting the gathering and expressing their solidarity with the Baloch people’s struggle for independence.
A plan to assassinate one of the leading women figures of the protests, Mahrang Baloch, was uncovered, and several attackers carrying radio devices and guns were arrested in the area surrounding the stage.
To date three leaders of the independence movement have been arrested by the Pakistani military, among them Sammi Deen Baluch, a female activist fighting against forced disappearances, who is now in hospital after being tortured in custody.
