Quetta, Sep 26 — At least four young men were killed and two others injured after the Pakistani military carried out a drone strike on a group that had gone for a picnic in the Balicha region of Tump, in Balochistan’s Kech district, local media reported on Saturday.
Citing family sources, The Balochistan Post reported that six residents of Balicha had travelled to the nearby mountains for a picnic when the strike took place on Friday afternoon.
The four deceased were identified as Yasir, Zubair, Sameer, and Deedag, with three of the four being cousins from the same family.
According to Pakistani authorities, the four were suspected militants, and weapons and ammunition were recovered from them. Families and local residents rejected the allegations, saying the victims were unarmed and had gone to the mountains for a picnic. They also called for an independent investigation into the attack.
The Balicha strike is the latest in a series of drone and aerial attacks by Pakistani forces across Balochistan, which have reportedly caused significant civilian casualties and extensive damage.
Condemning the brutal killings in Balicha, the Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC) said, “There is no framework of law, international humanitarian law, the laws of armed conflict, or basic human decency under which a civilian picnic becomes a legitimate military target.”
“Four youths. One strike. One army that demanded to be told where the citizens were going, and then turned that knowledge into a kill list. This is not the fog of war; it is the clarity of intent. A state does not need to announce genocide for it to be genocide; it only needs to make Baloch life conditional on the state's mercy, and then withhold that mercy without consequence, again and again, in Tump, in Panjgur, in Mastung, in every area where Baloch civilians have learned that obedience does not save them,” it added.
The BYC called on international human rights bodies, the United Nations, and global civil society to demand an independent investigation into these killings and to end their silence over the Pakistani airstrikes in Balochistan.