Afghanistan: Baloch refugee registered with UN murdered in Kabul, IVBMP demands a UN probe
KABUL [Afghanistan]: A Baloch political activist who fled Balochistan because of Pakistani state atrocities was murdered in Afghanistan on Saturday.
The victim Muhammad Raziq (Raziq Maandai Baloch) was one of the hundreds of Baloch refugees who had been living in Afghanistan for the past several years and had approached the UN Refugee Agency to be moved to a safer country.
The International Voice for Baloch Missing Persons (IVBMP) in a statement to the media has strongly condemned the killing of Mr Raziq Maandai and said, ‘we are aware of his case, he fled Balochistan to save his life. He was facing life threats because of his political struggle against Pakistani oppression in Balochistan.
‘He was also registered with the UN Refugee Agency in Afghanistan because he wanted the UN to transfer him to a third country so that the Pakistani intelligence agencies and their proxies would not be able to easily harm him.
His life, like other Baloch refugees, was not safe in Afghanistan from Pakistani intelligence agencies.’
IVBMP has also categorically rejected the Pakistani media news reports that he was affiliated with an armed group.
‘We reject lies of Pakistan Army sponsored journalists, social media figures and media outlets, who have falsely claimed that Raziq was a senior commander of an armed group. In fact, He was a refugee who went to Afghanistan because he could not flee to a third and safer country from Balochistan,’ the IVBMP statement read.
The dead body of Mr Raziq was not located at the time of filing this report. However, a picture of his dead body was released on Pakistani TV channel ARY and posted by some pro-Pakistani military accounts on Twitter.
The IVBMP in its statement further maintained, ‘if people who knew Raziq Mandai and were unaware that he has been murdered until they saw the news and pictures of his dead body in Pakistani media, then it only requires common sense to understand that the real perpetrators are Pakistani intelligence agencies. Pakistani state agencies have committed a crime and murdered a Baloch political refugee on Afghan soil’.
The International Voice for Baloch Missing Persons has urged the UN Refugee Agency and International Humanitarian Organisations to take immediate and practical steps for the protection of Baloch refugees in Afghanistan and transfer them to a safe third country.
The IVBMP said that it was the responsibility of International Humanitarian Organisations to save Baloch refugees in Afghanistan and expose Pakistan’s systemic killing of Baloch refugees outside Balochistan.
