Shoulan Baloch, spokesperson for the Baloch Students Organisation Azad, said in a statement to the media that the occupying Pakistani state’s forced eviction of Baloch people from their areas is part of the chain of colonial repression.
The spokesperson said that wherever wars have taken place in the world, oppressive and powerful forces have always targeted the oppressed people with repression, massacring them and badly disrupting their normal lives. Similar conditions have arisen in occupied Balochistan, where the occupying Pakistani state is forcibly evicting Baloch who have lived there for centuries from their ancestral areas and forcing them to migrate. In recent days, the ancient Sardasht and the surrounding population in Kalanch, Pasni, have been forcibly evicted from the area. They were constantly harassed with intimidation and threats, their normal lives were paralysed, they were subjected to violence and finally they were forcibly evicted from their ancestral homeland.
He said this colonial process of evicting the Baloch population from their ancestral homeland by the occupying Pakistani state is not new but has been going on for a long time. Before this, ordinary people across Balochistan have been targeted with repression and forcibly evicted from their areas, while many, fed up with colonial violence, have been forced to migrate from their homelands. Kohlu, Bolan and Dera Bugti are areas that have suffered this repression for years, where large numbers of people, fed up with the occupier’s repression, have been forced to migrate, while many have been evicted from their areas by force. Likewise, Awaran, Mashkay, Balgatar, Dasht, Panjgur, Zamuran, Mastung, Bolan, Noshki, Kalat and many outlying areas have been affected by this forced eviction.
The statement said that this year the occupying Pakistani state’s threats pressing the ordinary population of Khad Kocha, Mastung, to leave their areas, the forced attempt to empty several areas of Kalat, and the forced evacuation of people from Noshki and other areas have plunged the Baloch people into a mental crisis. Evicting people from their ancestral homeland is not just migration but an attack on every dimension of their existence and survival. People’s memories and identity are bound to the land; evicting them and forcing them to live as refugees is a crime against humanity for which the occupying Pakistani state is responsible.
Spokesperson Shoulan Baloch further said that Balochistan is not just a country but the motherland of the Baloch nation, where they have lived for centuries. Their existence rests on this land, but since the Pakistani occupation the Baloch nation has faced colonial repression. The Pakistani army’s bombing of ordinary populations, harassment and intimidation of the people, violence against them and forced eviction from their homeland have created a humanitarian crisis in Balochistan. Yet all the world’s human rights institutions are silent on these crimes, which is further strengthening occupation and the humanitarian crisis. It is the responsibility of all these international institutions established to protect human beings to take notice of this humanitarian crisis in Balochistan and play their role in ending the Pakistani occupation.
