Pakistan’s untold war: No justice for Balochistan’s disappeared
Kambar* couldn’t tell if it was day or night. The silence in the window-less, high-ceilinged room was broken only by the sounds of frogs croaking at night and the occasional plane taking off. Sometimes he’d hear the azaan, the Muslim call to prayer, in the distance.
Kambar is from Turbat, a city in Pakistan’s troubled province of Balochistan. Kambar worked as a sales agent, and had been pursuing a postgraduate degree at a university in Karachi. That was before he was abducted near his workplace in May 2019.
“They threatened me to confess [to] being a part of the militancy, [or] they would kill me and dump my body,” he said. Kambar was detained in Malir Cantonment, a military base in Karachi.
He was eventually released five months and seven days later, but remained under surveillance. Suffering from PTSD caused by the incident, he wasn’t able to complete his postgraduate degree and eventually left Pakistan to seek asylum abroad.
Kambar is one of the thousands who have been picked up, or disappeared, from Balochistan. Unlike him, many never make it back.
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