“They” are armed with guns, grenades, tear gas and sticks. She has only her voice: a voice so powerful that ‘they’ consider it to be a guerrilla action. She is Mahrang Baloch, a young woman who heads the Baloch Yakjehti Committee, a human rights movement that is calling for the return of the thousands of people who have disappeared in Balochistan at the hands of the Pakistani state. “They” are the members of the police, army and secret service of Islamabad who, in the last two days, have shot in cold blood, thrown grenades and tear gas canisters and beaten with sticks an unarmed crowd made up mostly of women and children who were protesting and asking for the return of those who have disappeared. Five people were killed and hundreds injured: ambulances were prevented from reaching the site of the massacre, the electricity and telephone lines were cut and plain-clothes security men set fire to houses and shops. One of the dead was twelve years old. Mahrang was arrested along with seven other women and about ten men and has been in custody for over 48 hours: she has not been allowed to see a lawyer and, until yesterday evening, no formal charges had been brought against her. Then a warrant appeared accusing her of terrorism, sedition, disturbing the peace and inciting revolt. The family wasn't even allowed to send her food or a change of clothes. Four of the other women, including Mahrang's fourteen-year-old sister, have been released: the others are still detained without formal charges and without legal representation. The men have simply disappeared, like thousands before them. Because in Balochistan, a region illegally occupied by Pakistan in 1948, thousands of people disappear every year. Sometimes they reappear, killed and thrown on the side of the road with signs of torture on their bodies. Or in mass graves, discovered by chance and immediately hidden by the State: or even, without organs, thrown like rubbish on hospital roofs. The story of Mahrang, a medical doctor, begins in 2006 when her father disappears from one day to the next. After years of requests, prayers and protests, his body was finally found in 2011, thrown away as garbage on the side of a road. In 2017, her brother disappeared. “That was the moment I decided to protest for everyone,” said Mahrang. In 2019 she finally founded the Baloch Yakjethi Committee: “We started a mass mobilization in schools,” continues the young woman, “and went door to door to provide young people, especially young women, with political and social education.” And on November 23, 2023, together with thousands of other women, she sets out for Islamabad at the head of the mothers, daughters, sisters and wives of the thousands of people who disappear every year in the region at the hands of the army and the so-called 'Death Squads', the private prisons and torture cells contracted out by the state. Last July she organized a large gathering in Gwadar and hundreds of thousands came from all over Balochistan: this time, the State sent two killers to assassinate her. The young woman was later invited by various international organizations, and Time magazine included her in its list of the 100 most influential young leaders in the world. The Pakistani authorities prevented her from attending the award ceremony and confiscated her passport. Soon after, she was named by the BBC as one of the 100 most influential women of the moment. The ISI launched a full-scale smear campaign on social media, but to no avail. Last January another gathering in Dalbandin brought together thousands of people and the young woman was immediately nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Too much for Islamabad. “I know that sooner or later they will catch me,” Mahrang had declared some time ago, “But unity is our strength, and I have no intention of keeping quiet”. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders, Mary Lawlor, has expressed “deep concern about the incident” and called for the immediate release of the girl. For the moment Mahrang is somewhat protected by her international fame, but no one knows for how long. Because one day, whether soon or later, someone will kill her. Because Balochistan is the skeleton in the closet, a closet already full of bulky skeletons, of Pakistan. A closet protected by a blanket of silence. A silence that the world should listen to before it's too late, and that of Balochistan, and of Mahrang and the others, remains only a memory.