QUETTA: The Balochistan National Party-Mengal (BNP-M) has announced a march toward the capital of Pakistan’s southwestern Balochistan province on April 6, it said on Friday, amid a deadlock with authorities over the release of Dr. Mahrang Baloch and other Baloch ethnic rights activists.
Baloch and a few other activists were arrested on March 22 after they took part in a sit-in protest outside the University of Balochistan to demand the release of some members of her Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC) rights group, whom they allege have been detained by security agencies. They have since been charged with terrorism, sedition and murder after the demonstration ended in the death of three protesters, according to police documents.
The Pakistan army and the government have in the past variously referred to Baloch and her BYC as “terrorist proxies” who they say are allied with militant separatist groups like the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA). Baloch and her group deny the charge and say they lead peaceful protests for the rights of the ethnic Baloch people.
On Friday, the BNP-M, which led supporters out of its chief Akhtar Mengal’s tribal heartland of Wadh in Balochistan’s Khuzdar district on March 28 to stage a sit-in at Lak Pass near the Mastung district, said its two-day ultimatum for the authorities to release Baloch and other activists had ended and its would now move toward the provincial capital of Quetta.
“We are standing on our demands for the release of detained Baloch women activists, but the government committee is not hearing us seriously,” Sanaullah Baloch, a senior BNP-M member, told Arab News, accusing authorities of “digging trenches” at the Quetta-Karachi highway to stop them from reaching the provincial capital.
“We have decided to march toward the capital for another round of sit-in and protests.”
At least two rounds of talks between the government and BNP-M chief Mengal have failed to bear any result, while provincial authorities have suspended mobile Internet in Quetta for the last three days, citing “serious security threats.”
Zahoor Buledi, a senior Balochistan minister who is part of the negotiations, said the government is fully engaged in a dialogue with the BNP.
“Though we held two rounds of talks with Mr. Mengal, they didn’t bore any result,” he told Arab News. “Talks will continue.”
Balochistan, Pakistan’s largest province by landmass and rich in mineral resources, has been the site of an insurgency for the last two decades. The separatists accuse Islamabad of exploiting the province’s natural resources, such as gold and copper. Successive Pakistani governments have denied the allegations.
Police actions against Baloch activists have intensified after Baloch separatists earlier this month staged a dramatic train siege that officials said ended in around 60 deaths, half of whom were separatists behind the assault.
More than a dozen United Nations experts demanded this week that Pakistan immediately release detained Baloch rights defenders and halt its crackdown on peaceful protests.

PARIS: A new exhibition opening in Paris on Friday showcases archaeological artifacts from Gaza, once a major commercial crossroads between Asia and Africa, whose heritage has been ravaged by Israel’s ongoing onslaught.
Around a hundred artifacts, including a 4,000-year-old bowl, a sixth-century mosaic from a Byzantine church and a Greek-inspired statue of Aphrodite, are on display at the Institut du Monde Arabe.
The rich and mixed collection speaks to Gaza’s past as a cultural melting pot, but the show’s creators also wanted to highlight the contemporary destruction caused by the war, sparked by Hamas’s attack on Israel in October 2023.
“The priority is obviously human lives, not heritage,” said Elodie Bouffard, curator of the exhibition, which is titled “Saved Treasures of Gaza: 5,000 Years of History.”
“But we also wanted to show that, for millennia, Gaza was the endpoint of caravan routes, a port that minted its own currency, and a city that thrived at the meeting point of water and sand,” she told AFP.
One section of the exhibition documents the extent of recent destruction.
Using satellite image, the UN’s cultural agency UNESCO has already identified damage to 94 heritage sites in Gaza, including the 13th-century Pasha’s Palace.
Bouffard said the damage to the known sites as well as treasures potentially hidden in unexplored Palestinian land “depends on the bomb tonnage and their impact on the surface and underground.”
“For now, it’s impossible to assess.”
The attacks by Hamas militants on Israel in 2023 left 1,218 dead. In retaliation, Israeli operations have killed more than 50,000 Palestinians and devastated the densely populated territory.

The story behind “Gaza’s Treasures” is inseparable from the ongoing wars in the Middle East.
At the end of 2024, the Institut du Monde Arabe was finalizing an exhibition on artifacts from the archaeological site of Byblos in Lebanon, but Israeli bombings on Beirut made the project impossible.
“It came to a sudden halt, but we couldn’t allow ourselves to be discouraged,” said Bouffard.
The idea of an exhibition on Gaza’s heritage emerged.
“We had just four and a half months to put it together. That had never been done before,” she explained.
Given the impossibility of transporting artifacts out of Gaza, the Institut turned to 529 pieces stored in crates in a specialized Geneva art warehouse since 2006. The works belong to the Palestinian Authority, which administers the West Bank.

The Oslo Accords of 1993, signed by the Palestine Liberation Organization and Israel, helped secure some of Gaza’s treasures.
In 1995, Gaza’s Department of Antiquities was established, which oversaw the first archaeological digs in collaboration with the French Biblical and Archaeological School of Jerusalem (EBAF).
Over the years, excavations uncovered the remains of the Monastery of Saint Hilarion, the ancient Greek port of Anthedon, and a Roman necropolis — traces of civilizations spanning from the Bronze Age to Ottoman influences in the late 19th century.
“Between Egypt, Mesopotamian powers, and the Hasmoneans, Gaza has been a constant target of conquest and destruction throughout history,” Bouffard noted.
In the 4th century BC, Greek leader Alexander the Great besieged the city for two months, leaving behind massacres and devastation.
Excavations in Gaza came to a standstill when Hamas took power in 2007 and Israel imposed a blockade.
Land pressure and rampant building in one of the world’s most densely populated areas has also complicated archaeological work.
And after a year and a half of war, resuming excavations seems like an ever-more distant prospect.
The exhibition runs until November 2, 2025.