KARACHI: They are 48. It has been three months since they arrived in Karachi, and this big, bad metropolis they have been flung into is new to them, but they are accepting it as home.
In an orphanage which houses some 145 children, these 48 usually stick together. They take time to open up.
Living in the orphanage in the posh Defence area of Karachi, these young people who are not orphans talk about their homes and families they left behind in Baluchistan.
What would force parents to separate their growing children from them is a gnawing question one is forced to ask.
“When asked, their parents replied ‘we were concerned about the future of our boys as they are kidnapped when they are 12 or 13 years old and then sent to Afghanistan for militant training. We don’t want them to become militants or suicide bombers’. This is how most of these children ended up here,” explained the General Manager of the orphanage Sirat-ul-Jannah, Ammar Farooq Qureshi.
“The law and order situation is very bad in our village called Anjeera, near Kalat. I saw people getting killed in firing; it was a horrifying experience. That’s why our parents sent us to Karachi,” said 16 year old Khalid, a student of grade 10th.
“I want to become a journalist to highlight Baluchistan’s issues,” said Khalid. “We cannot say that Baloch children are not being used in militant activities,” said child rights activist Iqbal Detho, adding that according to a report published in newspapers on 14th March 2013, Baluchistan police arrested 11 children aged between 11 and 16 years for their alleged involvement in carrying out the Bacha Khan blast in Quetta.
Khalid’s 17 year old brother Nasir has different dreams. “I wish to become a doctor. The education system was very poor in our village and here we are getting good education,” he said.
The children are aged between 7 years to 17 years, and include both girls and boys, almost all belonging to Kalat. Their parents and other family members visit them often.
Most of the children are too young and they cannot communicate in Urdu. Therefore, the boys are sent to a school in Mehmoodabad where they are being taught just Urdu for the time being, he added.
“It depends how long the boys want to live here as most of them are too young.” Internews
