"[12] In 2015, Karima fled Pakistan and took refuge in Canada after fearing for her life for speaking out against enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings allegedly carried out by the Pakistani military.

On 22 December 2020, her dead body was found submerged at Toronto's waterfront under circumstances that were described as suspicious by her family, as well as several politicians and activists including the Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC), who claimed she was murdered by the Pakistani state.

[13][5][14] Baloch started her career as a human rights and independence activist in 2005, when she attended a protest in Turbat over forced disappearances in the Pakistani province of Balochistan, where she carried a picture of one of her missing relatives.

A 2014 OZY article about her states, "In Islamabad, Pakistan's capital, Karima is seen as a dangerous political actor and a threat to the nation’s security.

[28] CBC News reported that a close friend and fellow Baloch activist, Lateef Johar, said that "officers had told her family she was found drowned in the water".

[39] Chris Alexander, the former Canadian Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, stated in a tweet: "All of us who knew Karima see the circumstances of her death as deeply suspicious.

[41] A few months before her death Sajid Hussain, a journalist who wrote about human rights violations in Balochistan, was found drowned in Sweden, where he had sought asylum.

[11] Her inclusion in the BBC 100 list as a Baloch woman was repeated in 2024 when the Iranian Zhina Modares Gorji bookseller was also named for her struggle for freedom of speech.