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Afghanistan’s prime minister condemned on Saturday the “unilateral measures” taken by Pakistan to forcibly deport tens of thousands of Afghans since the start of April.Pakistan has launched a strict campaign to evict by the end of the month more than 800,000 Afghans who have had their residence permits cancelled, including some who were born in Pakistan or lived there for decades.Pakistan’s top diplomat Ishaq Dar flew to Kabul for a day-long visit on Saturday where he held discussions with Afghan Taliban officials, including Prime Minister Hasan Akhund and Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi.”Rather than collaborating with the Islamic Emirate on the gradual repatriation process, Pakistan’s unilateral measures are intensifying the problem and hindering progress toward a solution,” Akhund said during his meeting with Dar.He urged the Pakistani government to “facilitate the dignified return of Afghan refugees”, according to a statement on X.Earlier, foreign minister Muttaqi “expressed his deep concern and disappointment over the situation and forced deportation of Afghan refugees in Pakistan”, the ministry’s deputy spokesperson Zia Ahmad said on X.Ahmad added that Dar had reassured officials that Afghans “will not be mistreated”.- ‘No leniency’ -Afghans in Pakistan have reported weeks of arbitrary arrests, extortion and harassment by authorities.Islamabad has said nearly 85,000 have already crossed into Afghanistan, with convoys of Afghan families heading to border crossings each day fearing raids, arrests or separation from family members.On Friday, Pakistan’s deputy interior minister Tallal Chaudhry told a news conference that “there will not be any sort of leniency and extension in the deadline”.The relationship between the two neighbours has soured as attacks in Pakistan’s border regions have soared following the return of the Taliban government in Afghanistan in 2021.Last year was the deadliest in Pakistan for a decade, with Islamabad accusing Kabul of allowing militants to take refuge in Afghanistan, from where they plan attacks.The Taliban government denies the charge.- Second phase of deportations -Chaudhry said on Friday that nearly 85,000 Afghans have crossed into Afghanistan since the start of April, the majority of them undocumented. More than half of them were children, according to the United Nations refugee agency.The women and girls among those crossing were entering a country where they are banned from education beyond secondary school and barred from many sectors of work.Afghanistan’s refugees ministry spokesman told AFP on Saturday the Taliban authorities had recorded some 71,000 Afghan returnees through the two main border points with Pakistan between April 1 and 18.In the first phase of returns in 2023, hundreds of thousands of undocumented Afghans were forced across the border in the space of a few weeks.In the second phase announced in March, the Pakistan government cancelled the residence permits of more than 800,000 Afghans and warned thousands more awaiting relocation to other countries to leave by the end of April.The move to expel Afghans is widely supported by Pakistanis.”They are totally disrespectful towards our country. They have abused us, they have used us. One can’t live in a country if they don’t respect it,” said Ahmad Waleed, standing in his shop on Friday in Rawalpindi, near the capital.

Afghanistan’s foreign minister expressed “deep concern and disappointment” to his Pakistani counterpart on Saturday over the forced deportation of tens of thousands of Afghans since the start of April.Pakistan has launched a strict campaign to evict by the end of the month more than 800,000 Afghans who have had their residence permits cancelled, including some who were born in Pakistan or lived there for decades.Pakistan’s top diplomat Ishaq Dar flew to Kabul for a day-long visit on Saturday where he held discussions with Afghan Taliban officials, including Prime Minister Hasan Akhund and Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi.”Muttaqi expressed his deep concern and disappointment over the situation and forced deportation of Afghan refugees in Pakistan,” the Afghan foreign ministry’s deputy spokesperson Zia Ahmad said on X. “He strongly urged Pakistani authorities to prevent the suppression of the rights of Afghans living there and those coming here.”Ahmad added that Dar reassured officials that Afghans “will not be mistreated”.Afghans in Pakistan have reported weeks of arbitrary arrests, extortion and harassment by authorities as they ramp up their campaign to expel migrants. Islamabad has said nearly 85,000 have already crossed into Afghanistan, with convoys of Afghan families heading to border crossings each day fearing raids, arrests or separation from family members.On Friday, Pakistan’s deputy interior minister Tallal Chaudhry told a news conference that “there will not be any sort of leniency and extension in the deadline”.”When you arrive without any documents, it only deepens the uncertainty of whether you’re involved in narcotics trafficking, supporting terrorism, or committing other crimes,” he added.Analysts, however, say it is a politically motivated strategy to put pressure on Afghanistan’s Taliban government over escalating security concerns.The relationship between the two neighbours has soured as attacks in Pakistan’s border regions have soared, following the return of the Taliban government in Kabul in 2021.Last year was the deadliest in Pakistan for a decade, with Islamabad accusing Kabul of allowing militants to take refuge in Afghanistan, from where they plan attacks.The Taliban government denies the charge.- Second phase of deportations -Chaudhry said on Friday that nearly 85,000 Afghans have crossed into Afghanistan since the start of April, the majority of them undocumented. More than half of them were children, according to the United Nations refugee agency, entering a country where girls and women are banned from education after secondary school and barred from many sectors of work.Afghanistan’s refugees ministry spokesman told AFP on Saturday the Taliban authorities had recorded some 71,000 Afghan returnees through the two main border points with Pakistan between April 1 and 18.In the first phase of returns in 2023, hundreds of thousands of undocumented Afghans were forced across the border in the space of a few weeks.In the second phase announced in March, the Pakistan government cancelled the residence permits of more than 800,000 Afghans and warned thousands more awaiting relocation to other countries to leave by the end of April.Millions of Afghans have poured into Pakistan over the past several decades to flee successive wars, but tensions with the Afghan community have risen as Pakistan’s economic and security concerns have deepened.The move to expel Afghans is widely supported by Pakistanis.”They are totally disrespectful towards our country. They have abused us, they have used us. One can’t live in a country if they don’t respect it,” said Ahmad Waleed, standing in his shop on Friday in Rawalpindi, near the capital.

A mob beat to death a member of Pakistan’s persecuted Ahmadiyya minority on Friday after hundreds of radical Islamists surrounded their place of worship in the port city of Karachi, police said.A mob, many from the anti-blasphemy political group Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), stormed through narrow streets of Saddar neighbourhood chanting slogans, enraged that Ahmadis were allegedly offering Friday prayers.”One member of the community was killed after the mob identified him as an Ahmadi. They attacked him with sticks and bricks,” Muhammad Safdar, a senior local police official in the port city of Karachi where the incident happened.”The mob included members of several religious parties,” he told AFP.Safdar said police took around 25 Ahmadis into custody for their safety.An AFP journalist at the scene saw a prison van escorted by police vehicles take the Ahmadi men away, after negotiating with the 600-strong chanting mob.The Ahmadiyya community are considered heretics by the Pakistani government and have been persecuted for decades, but threats and intimidation have intensified in recent years.A local resident among the crowd Abdul Qadir Ashrafi told AFP he joined the mob to pressure police to arrest the Ahmadis.”We requested that the place be sealed and that those conducting the Friday prayers be arrested, with criminal proceedings initiated against them,” Abdul Qadir Ashrafi, a 52-year-old businessman said.The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan said it was “appalled by the orchestrated attack by a far-right religious party on a colonial-era Ahmadi place of worship”.”This failure of law and order is a stark reminder of the continued complicity of the state in the systematic persecution of a beleaguered community,” it said on X.- Deadly mob violence -Ahmadis, who number around 10 million worldwide, consider themselves Muslims, and their faith is identical to mainstream Islam in almost every way, but their belief in another messiah has marked them blasphemous non-believers.Pakistan’s constitution has branded them non-Muslims since 1974, and a 1984 law forbids them from claiming their faith as Islamic.Unlike in other countries, they cannot refer to their places of worship as mosques, make the call to prayer, or travel on the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca.Hardline TLP supporters regularly monitor Ahmadi places of worship and file police complaints against them for identifying as Muslims and conducting prayers in a manner similar to Islamic practices — illegal in Pakistan.According to a tally kept by the community, six Ahmadis were killed in 2024, and more than 280 since 1984.In the same period, more than 4,100 Ahmadis have faced criminal charges including 335 under blasphemy laws which carry the death penalty.Mob violence is common in Pakistan, where blasphemy is an incendiary issue that carries the death penalty.Dozens of churches were ransacked in the city of Jaranwala in 2023 when clerics used mosque loudspeakers to claim that a Christian man had committed blasphemy, sparking a crowd of hundreds of Muslim rioters.Last August, the Supreme Court was pressured into backtracking on a landmark ruling that would have allowed Ahmadis to practice their faith as long as they do not use Muslim terms, after weeks of protests by fundamentalist groups including death threats to the chief justice. 

Pakistan’s foreign minister arrived Saturday in Afghanistan to meet Taliban officials after his country expelled more than 85,000 Afghans, mostly children, in just over two weeks.Islamabad has launched a strict campaign to evict by the end of April more than 800,000 Afghans who have had their residence permits cancelled, including some who were born in Pakistan or lived there for decades.Convoys of Afghan families have been heading to border crossings each day fearing raids, arrests or being separated from family members. Pakistan’s foreign office said its top diplomat, Ishaq Dar, along with his delegation of ministers, will hold meetings during the one-day visit with senior Afghan Taliban officials, including Prime Minister Hasan Akhund. Dar was greeted warmly off the plane in the Afghan capital by the foreign ministry’s deputy minister for financial and administrative affairs, Mohammad Naeem, according to a video shared by Pakistan’s foreign office. “There will not be any sort of leniency and extension in the deadline,” Pakistan’s deputy interior minister Tallal Chaudhry told a news conference on Friday.”When you arrive without any documents, it only deepens the uncertainty of whether you’re involved in narcotics trafficking, supporting terrorism, or committing other crimes,” he added.He has previously accused Afghans of being “terrorists and criminals”, but analysts say it is a politically motivated strategy to put pressure on Afghanistan’s Taliban government over escalating security concerns.Chaudhry said on Friday that nearly 85,000 Afghans have crossed into Afghanistan since the start of April, the majority of them undocumented. The United Nations’ refugee agency said on Friday more then half of them were children — entering a country where girls are banned from secondary school and university and women are barred from many sectors of work.On Saturday, Afghanistan’s refugees ministry spokesman told AFP the Taliban authorities had recorded some 71,000 Afghan returnees through the two main border points with Pakistan between April 1 and 18.- Second phase of deportations -The United Nations says nearly three million Afghans have taken shelter in Pakistan after fleeing successive conflicts.Pakistan was one of just three countries that recognised the Taliban’s first government in the 1990s and was accused of covertly supporting their insurgency against NATO forces.But their relationship has soured as attacks in Pakistan’s border regions have soared.Last year was the deadliest in Pakistan for a decade with Islamabad accusing Kabul of allowing militants to take refuge in Afghanistan, from where they plan attacks.The Taliban government denies the charge.In the first phase of returns in 2023, hundreds of thousands of undocumented Afghans were forced across the border in the space of a few weeks. In the second phase announced in March, the Pakistan government cancelled the residence permits of more than 800,000 Afghans, warning those in Pakistan awaiting relocation to other countries to leave by the end of April.More than 1.3 million who hold Proof of Registration cards issued by the UN refugee agency have been told to leave Islamabad and the neighbouring city of Rawalpindi.

Scores of penitents whipped themselves bloody under a scorching Philippine sun while others were nailed to crosses in a polarising Good Friday tradition drawing the most extreme of Catholic devotees.The macabre spectacle, officially frowned on by the Church, attracts thousands of Filipinos — and a smattering of tourists — each Easter weekend to sites across Asia’s only majority Catholic nation.In Pampanga province, two hours north of Manila, 64-year-old Ruben Enaje was nailed to a cross for the 36th time on Friday.Minutes after the nails were gingerly removed from his palms, he told reporters it would be for the last time.”I really can’t do it anymore. They had to aim portable fans at me earlier just for me to breathe normally,” Enaje said, after temperatures reached 39 degrees Celsius (102 Fahrenheit).In an unscripted moment, Enaje had tumbled down an embankment while navigating the narrow path to the cross after being “pushed a bit harder than usual” by a man playing a Roman soldier.He told reporters he had felt “dizzy” while walking to the venue, needing to rest for 30 minutes before reaching the site.He has hinted at retirement in the past, and this year local officials finally introduced his successor: Arnold Maniago, a veteran of 24 crucifixions.Maniago conceded he was “a little nervous” about taking on the role of Jesus.- More than penance -Among the procession, men with their faces covered by bandanas rhythmically whipped themselves as they walked towards the cross.But the flails, tipped with bamboo shards, rarely produce the desired blood.An older man showed AFP a small wooden paddle embedded with sharp glass he used on the backs of penitents to make it flow.Children trailed many of the processions.A boy no more than eight years old lightly flailed the back of a shirtless man lying in the road.Mark Palma, whose back was raw and smeared with blood, said flagellation was more than an act of penance.The 30-year-old told AFP he had spent half his life taking part in the flagellation ritual as a way of praying for his sister born with a heart defect.”She’ll be going through an operation this year, she has a hole in her heart,” he said.”I’m praying for her to be healed. I want the operation to be successful.”Raymond Ducusin, 31, said he began taking part in 2022 when his parents developed health issues.Though his father passed away, he had no plans to stop.”I want to commemorate his legacy through this. I still believe in miracles,” Ducusin said.Officials said about 10,000 people attended Good Friday events in Pampanga.More than 50 foreign tourists who had purchased special passes viewed the proceedings from under a tent.David, a 45-year-old from New York City, said he and his partner had planned their holiday to attend the crucifixions.”To see something born at the community level that’s still vibrant… most religious affiliation and sentiment in the West is pretty much fading away and here, it’s still incredibly visceral,” he said.

Pakistan’s foreign minister was due to visit Afghanistan on Saturday after his country expelled more than 85,000 Afghans, mostly children, in just over two weeks.Islamabad has launched a strict campaign to evict by the end of April more than 800,000 Afghans who have had their residence permits cancelled — including some who were born in Pakistan or lived there for decades.Convoys of Afghan families have been heading to border towns each day fearing the “humiliation” of raids, arrests or being separated from family members.Pakistan’s foreign office said its top diplomat Ishaq Dar will hold meetings with senior Afghan Taliban officials, including Prime Minister Hasan Akhund during a day-long visit.”There will not be any sort of leniency and extension in the deadline,” Pakistan’s deputy interior minister Tallal Chaudhry told a news conference on Friday.”When you arrive without any documents, it only deepens the uncertainty of whether you’re involved in narcotics trafficking, supporting terrorism, or committing other crimes,” he added.Chaudhry has previously accused Afghans of being “terrorists and criminals”, but analysts say it is a politically motivated strategy to put pressure on Afghanistan’s Taliban government over escalating security concerns.He said on Friday that nearly 85,000 Afghans have crossed into Afghanistan since the start of April, the majority of them undocumented.The United Nations’ refugee agency said on Friday more then half of them were children — entering a country where girls are banned from secondary school and university and women are barred from many sectors of work.- Second phase of deportations -The United Nations says nearly three million Afghans have taken shelter in Paksitan after fleeing successive conflicts.Pakistan was one of just three countries that recognised the Taliban’s first government in the 1990s and was accused of covertly supporting their insurgency against NATO forces.But their relationship has soured as attacks in Pakistan’s border regions have soared.Last year was the deadliest in Pakistan for a decade with Islamabad accusing Kabul of allowing militants to take refuge in Afghanistan, from where they plan attacks.The Taliban government denies the charge.In the first phase of deportations in 2023, hundreds of thousands of undocumented Afghans were forced across the border in the space of a few weeks. In the second phase announced in March, the Pakistan government cancelled the residence permits of more than 800,000 Afghans, warning those in Pakistan awaiting relocation to other countries to leave by the end of April.More than 1.3 million who hold Proof of Registration cards issued by the UN refugee agency have been told to leave Islamabad and the neighbouring city of Rawalpindi.

Tens of thousands of pilgrims thronged Sri Lanka’s holy city of Kandy on Friday at the start of a rare display of a prized Buddhist relic, triggering traffic chaos and public protests.Devotees who had camped overnight outside the Temple of the Tooth complained that they were confined to a holding area after security checks and were deprived of food and water for hours.President Anura Kumara Dissanayake officially launched the exposition by offering flowers to what Buddhists in Sri Lanka believe to be the left canine tooth of the Buddha.Dissanayake’s office said he was accompanied by Colombo-based diplomats invited as guests to the 16th-century temple shortly before the exhibition opened to the public.Police rushed to prevent a stampede as the gates opened to allow pilgrims to walk past the relic displayed inside the temple.Several older people fainted and were assisted by bystanders.An AFP photographer saw one man stretched out on a bench, a small child fanning him with a bunch of papers while police looked on.”Let us out… We are suffering here. We don’t want to see the relic, please let us go,” one man shouted from inside the holding area as police attempted to confine the crowd within a fenced enclosure.A woman also pleaded to be let out of the holding area so she could return home. “We came out of devotion, but the promised food and water were not provided,” she shouted.- Long queues -Queues from three directions outside the temple compound stretched almost two kilometres (1.2 miles), with tens of thousands of devotees trying to get a glimpse of the relic.Police had estimated that about 200,000 people would visit Kandy daily during the 10-day display but local officials said they had underestimated the crowd badly.The main roads leading to Kandy, 115 kilometres (70 miles) northeast of Colombo, were blocked for long periods despite special traffic arrangements and parking areas reserved for pilgrims.Around 10,000 police officers have been deployed and armed troops reinforced security at the temple, which was targeted by Tamil separatists in a 1998 suicide attack that killed 16 people.Classes in Kandy have been cancelled, with schools repurposed to house the large number of security personnel sent to the city.More than a million people were estimated to have visited the UNESCO-designated temple when the tooth relic was last displayed in March 2009.The 1998 bombing of the temple destroyed walls and windows, in the process revealing 18th-century murals that had been plastered over several times through the site’s history.A section of the exposed murals is displayed in the temple’s tightly guarded museum, which says they date back to between 1707 and 1739 — a period when Kandy was the seat of the monarchy that ruled the island.

Thousands of pilgrims camped overnight outside Sri Lanka’s holiest Buddhist temple in anticipation of Friday’s display of a prized relic that will be shown to the public for the first time in 16 years.Around 10,000 police have been deployed to safeguard the Temple of the Tooth as it launches a 10-day exhibition of what Sri Lankan Buddhists believe to be Buddha’s left canine.Police said armed troops will reinforce security at the 16th-century temple in Kandy, which was targeted by Tamil separatists in a 1998 suicide attack that killed 16 people.”We expect about two million devotees to visit Kandy during the 10-day exhibition,” a police officer told AFP. “There will be airport-style security at the entrance,” he added, warning that bags and cameras would be prohibited.  Classes in Kandy have been cancelled as the schools have all been repurposed to house the large number of security forces sent to the city.Queues to enter the temple stretched over two kilometres (1.2 miles) before the exhibition was due to open on Friday afternoon, according to a live map updated by police.Over a million people were estimated to have visited the UNESCO-designated temple when the tooth relic was last displayed in March 2009.The 1998 bombing of the temple destroyed walls and windows, and in the process revealed 18-century murals that had been plastered over several times in the course of the site’s history. A section of the exposed murals is displayed in the temple’s tightly guarded museum, which says they date back to between 1707 and 1739, a period when Kandy was the seat of the monarchy that ruled over the island.

In central India’s dry forests, community trackers hunt for signs of elephants to feed into an alert system that is helping prevent some of the hundreds of fatal tramplings each year.Boots crunch on brittle leaves as Bhuvan Yadav, proudly wearing a T-shirt with his team’s title of “friends of the elephant”, looks for indicators ranging from tracks or dung, to sightings or simply the deep warning rumbles of a herd.”As soon as we get the exact location of the herd, we update it in the application,” Yadav said, as he and three other trackers trailed a herd deep in forests in Chhattisgarh state, preparing to enter the information into their mobile phone.The app, developed by Indian firm Kalpvaig, crunches the data and then triggers warnings to nearby villagers.There are fewer than 50,000 Asian elephants in the wild, according to the World Wildlife Fund. The majority are in India, with others in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia.The usually shy animals are coming into increasing contact with humans because of rapidly expanding settlements and growing forest disturbance, including mining operations for coal, iron ore, and bauxite.Mine operations in particular have been blamed for pushing elephants into areas of Chhattisgarh where they had not been seen for decades.- ‘Line of defence’ -“We have to be quiet so that there is no confrontation,” said Yadav, trekking through forests surrounding the Udanti Sitanadi Tiger Reserve.”We try and maintain a distance of 200 metres (220 yards) from the herd — so that there is room to run,” added Yadav, who is one of around 250 trackers employed by the state forestry department. Despite weighing up to six tonnes, an Asian elephant can cover several hundred metres in just 30 seconds, according to research published in the journal Nature.And as elephant habitats shrink, conflict between humans and wild elephants has grown — 629 people were killed by elephants across India in 2023-2024, according to parliamentary figures.Chhattisgarh accounted for 15 percent of India’s elephant-related human casualties in the last five years, despite being home to just one percent of the country’s wild elephants, government data show.Authorities say the government-funded alert system has slashed casualties.In the Udanti Sitanadi Tiger Reserve area, elephants killed five people in 2022, a year before the app was launched.Among them was 50-year-old rice farmer Lakshmibai Gond, who was trampled while watching her fields in the state’s Gariaband district, her son Mohan Singh Gond said. “She was caught off-guard,” he told AFP. “The elephant ripped her skull apart.”Since the alarm system began in February 2023, just one elephant-related death has been recorded.”Villagers provide their mobile number and geo-tag locations,” said state forest official Varun Jain, who leads the initiative.”They get calls and text messages when an elephant is within five kilometres (three miles).”Announcements are also broadcast on loudspeakers in villages in key conflict zones as a “second line of defence”, he added. – ‘Such a clever creature’ -Residents say the warnings have saved lives, but they resent the animals.”When there is an announcement, we do not go to the forest to forage because we know anything can happen,” said community health worker Kantibai Yadav.”We suffer losses, because that is our main source of livelihood and they also damage our crops,” she added. “The government should not let wild elephants roam around like that.”Forest officials say they are trying to also “improve the habitat” so that elephants do not raid villages in search of food, Jain said. The app requires trackers to monitor the elusive animals over vast areas of thick bush, but Jain said the alert system was more effective than darting and fixing radio collars to the pachyderms.”An elephant is such a clever creature that it will remove that collar within two to three months,” Jain said.Radio collars would be usually fitted to the matriarch, because that helps track the rest of the herd who follow her.But the elephants that pose the most danger to humans are often rogue bulls, solitary male animals enraged during “musth”, a period of heightened sexual activity when testosterone levels soar.”Casualties you see in 80 percent of the cases are done by the loners,” he said.”The app is to ensure that there are no human casualties.” 

Pakistan’s Mahrang Baloch has risen to become the young face of a decades-old movement against rights abuses since she discovered her father’s tortured body when she was a teenager.The 32-year-old, who was arrested last month, is now one of the country’s most recognisable protest leaders representing the ethnic Baloch minority. “Our father made the decision for us when he dedicated himself to Baloch rights. And after him, we all embraced his philosophy and committed ourselves to this struggle,” Mahrang wrote to her family from the cell where she is being held in the provincial capital Quetta.She was charged in March with terrorism, sedition and murder, according to the police charge sheet seen by AFP.Balochistan province, a sparsely populated, rugged region that borders Iran and Afghanistan, is the poorest in the country despite being rich in untapped hydrocarbons and minerals.Security forces are fighting a decades-long insurgency by Baloch separatist militants, led by the Balochistan Liberation Army, which accuses authorities and outsiders, including Chinese investors, of exploiting the region.Rights groups say the violence has been countered with a severe crackdown by authorities that has swept up innocent people. According to Voice for Baloch Missing Persons, an NGO, 18,000 people have disappeared in the province since 2000, figures disputed by the authorities.Mahrang founded the Baloch Unity Committee (BYC) after her brother disappeared for four months in 2018 to mobilise the relatives of victims of alleged extrajudicial executions, enforced disappearances, and other arbitrary arrests.”Mahrang is the child of resistance against brutal state oppression,” former senator Afrasiab Khattak told AFP.A spokesperson for the Balochistan government told AFP that “activists are making claims without any grounds” about rights abuses and enforced disappearances.-‘Mahrang replaced our father’ -Mahrang first began campaigning after the disappearance of her father, defying tribal tradition in a region where less than one in three women can read and write to leave home and demand answers from the authorities.”We could see her blocking the roads crying and pleading for her father, even when there was a police vehicle coming, she was still standing bravely in front of every obstacle,” said Naseem Baloch, president of the Baloch National Movement, who has been in exile in Europe since 2011.The bullet-riddled body of Mahrang’s father was finally identified one July night in 2011, scarred by torture and wearing the same clothes he was kidnapped in.”My brother fainted when he saw him,” her 26-year-old sister Nadia told AFP.”Mahrang then replaced our father: she helped our mother feed us with her medical scholarships and continued her fight for the Baluchi cause.”Not only did she carry on the struggle, she radically changed the Baloch movement, according to her classmates.”Before, everyone was afraid to speak to the media, but Mahrang led the way and succeeded in having her brother released, so now families dare to denounce these kidnappings,” Naseem Baloch said.Above all, Mahrang and Nadia Baloch did not hesitate to voice their accusations that the security services were behind her brother’s kidnapping.Mahrang broke taboos as a student, too. She led protests against her Quetta university after staff were caught secretly filming women on campus to blackmail them.- International recognition -With a father killed, a brother kidnapped and a childhood spent in poverty, Mahrang’s story resonates with families in rural Balochistan.”People identify with Mahrang because she carries their pain,” her sister said.Mohammad Gul, a 55-year-old relative, said: “Baloch people see her as a ray of hope — a true leader challenging those who are responsible.”Baloch armed groups demand independence, sometimes with spectacular attacks such as a deadly train hostage-taking in March, but the BYC advocates non-violence and a negotiated solution within the framework of the federal state.Mahrang gained international attention after leading a “Long Baloch March” of more than 1,600 kilometres (1,000 miles) from Balochistan to the national capital Islamabad to denounce the alleged extrajudicial execution of a young Baloch man. Her activism earned her a place among Time Magazine’s 100 Most Promising People of 2024 — an award she was unable to receive because authorities prevented her from leaving the country.Her marches are attended by thousands, almost exclusively women, who stage days-long sit-ins. “They are less likely to be beaten, arrested, or kidnapped,” explained Ayesha Siddiqa, a political scientist now based in London.However, many women protesters have been imprisoned in recent weeks.Mahrang has already “prepared the family” to continue the fight, said her sister Nadia.”Perhaps one day, she will be kidnapped or killed,” she said.