Baloch National Movement Holds Photo Exhibition in Geneva, Highlights Alleged Rights Abuses in Balochistan

The Baloch National Movement (BNM) held a photo exhibition outside the United Nations Office in Geneva to highlight alleged human rights abuses by Pakistani authorities in Balochistan, including enforced disappearances, collective punishment and the suffering of affected families.

The exhibition featured photographs of forcibly disappeared Baloch people and their families, highlighting their efforts to seek information about the whereabouts of missing relatives.

According to the BNM, the initiative aimed to draw international attention to the human rights situation in Balochistan and present photographic documentation of alleged enforced disappearances to international institutions, including the United Nations.

The organisation described enforced disappearances as a continuing concern affecting thousands of families, saying the photographs represented people who had been waiting for years for the return of their loved ones and answers about their whereabouts.

The BNM said that despite protests by families of missing persons, a long march organised by the Voice for Baloch Missing Persons and prolonged hunger strikes in Balochistan, it believed that effective international action on the issue remained lacking.

The group described its international campaign as “an effort to bring this question, in the form of documentation and photographic evidence, to an international platform such as the United Nations.”

Referring to Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC) leader Mahrang Baloch, the BNM said she first raised her voice against the alleged enforced disappearance of her father when she was a young girl and later emerged as a prominent advocate for Baloch rights.

The organisation claimed that Mahrang Baloch had faced multiple cases over her activism and was sentenced to life imprisonment by a Pakistani court in June 2026 in what the group described as a “false case”.

The BNM also highlighted the cases of its chairperson Naseem Baloch’s father, Muhammad Bakhsh Sajidi, his uncle, Naeem Sajidi, and his maternal uncle, Rafiq Baloch.

According to the organisation, the three men were allegedly forcibly disappeared by the Pakistan Army during raids on their homes in the Hub region of Balochistan on February 2, 2026. Their whereabouts have reportedly remained unknown since then.

The group said the case had also been raised through an Early Day Motion in the British Parliament.

Through the Geneva exhibition, the BNM sought to bring photographs of victims of alleged enforced disappearances before international institutions and the wider international community. It called for greater international attention to the human rights situation in Balochistan.