KARACHI/QUETTA, Pakistan — For over 11 years relatives of people who disappeared in the murk of a separatist insurgency in southwestern Pakistan have gathered outside the Press Club of Quetta wanting to know who took their fathers, husbands and sons. The daily sit-in protest in the provincial capital of Balochistan began on June 28, 2009 after a doctor, Deen Muhammad, was abducted by "unknown men". Relatives suspect Muhammad, like many other missing ethnic Balochs, was snatched by Pakistani security forces hunting separatists, who for decades have waged a campaign for greater autonomy or independence. Sometimes less than a dozen join the daily protest, other days many more, but Muhammad's two daughters have been among the regulars since they were eight and ten years old.

Source: International New York Times July 19, 2020 01:52 UTC