Nearly 13,000 people from coup hit Myanmar sheltered in Mizoram

At least 13,000 Myanmarese refugees entered Mizoram after a military coup in Myanmar. Most of them fled to India to save their lives from the military atrocities.

Mizoram shares its boundary with Myanmar and it is very easy to enter India through the state of Mizoram. Refugees camps were set up in Mizoram by the government and non-government agencies for the Myanmarese who fled to India to save their lives.

District Administration and police officials said that off and on men, women and children from Myanmar specially from the country’s Chin state are taking shelter in Mizoram’s southern and eastern bordering districts.

Officials and elected representatives who are closely monitoring the Myanmar development and the refugee issues said that continued clashes between the Army and the civilian groups forced the people to cross over and take shelter in Mizoram.

Over 15 thousand Myanmar nationals took refuge in Mizoram, more to come

According to the data maintained by the Crime Investigation Department (CID), the Myanmar national took shelter mostly in Mizoram’s six of the 11 districts — Champhai, Lawngtlai, Siaha, Serchhip, Hnahthial and Saitual with Champhai housing the highest number of around 6,000, while 1,630 people in state capital Aizawl.

Since March this year, Mizoram’s most influential NGO Young Mizo Association, various churches including Presbyterian, Baptist, and Roman Catholic are working relentlessly on humanitarian grounds and are providing food, essentials, clothing and shelter to the refugees.

Mizoram Chief Minister Zoramthanga on a number of occasions urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to provide humanitarian assistance to Myanmar nationals as the bordering northeastern state is witnessing a fresh influx of refugees from the military coup hit neighbouring country after a renewed clash between the Army and the pro-democratic forces.

An MHA advisory, recently sent out to the four northeastern states, Mizoram, Manipur, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh, which shares 1,640-km unfenced border with Myanmar, said that the states and Union Territories have no power to grant “refugee” status to any foreigner, and India is not a signatory to the UN Refugee Convention of 1951 and its 1967 Protocol.