Mizoram Cabinet: Kuki-Chin People To Receive Humanitarian Assistance

AIZAWL: The Mizoram government resolved on Tuesday to provide humanitarian assistance to Kuki-Chin refugees after they arrived in south Mizoram's Lawngtlai district on Sunday. 

Home minister Lalchamliana reported that chief minister c presided over a meeting of the council of ministers where it was resolved to offer temporary shelter, food, and other necessities to Bangladeshi nationals who had abandoned their houses.

The Kuki-Chin people left the Chittagong Hills Tracts (CHT) in Bangladesh after what is believed to have been an offensive operation by the Bangladeshi army against an ethnic insurgent group,

Due to a military operation against the Kuki-Chin National Army (KNA), an ethnic rebel group that demands a separate state and protection for the Kuki-Chin-Mizo communities in the neighboring country, over 200 Kuki-Chin people from CHT fled their homes and entered south Mizoram's Lawngtlai district on Sunday.

Meanwhile, Manesia Khaimeichho, the Sud-Divisional Officer (Civil) for the Lawngtlai district, reported that no additional people from Bangladesh arrived in the state on Tuesday.

He said that the local government had conducted a new count of Bangladeshi citizens on Tuesday and discovered a total of 272 individuals had sought safety there.

Another official confirmed that late on Monday, the Bangladeshi nationals were relocated from Simeinasora village near the Mizoram-Bangladesh-Myanmar tri-junction to Parva-3 village.

The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the Bangladeshi nationals were housed in a community hall, a school, and a sub-center in Parva-3 village, about 3 kilometers from Simeinasora in Lawngtlai district.

According to Richies Laltanpuia, vice president of the Tuichawng group of the Young Mizo Association (YMA) in the Lawngtlai district, who is working with the refugees, many of the children who entered Mizoram on Sunday did so without their parents, as did some mothers and some fathers.

Several AA cadres were reportedly slain in an hour-long encounter on November 16 according to a KNF leader. The commander claimed that recently, 14 people, including a 17-year-old girl, were also kidnapped by the Bangladesh Army and Arkan Army (AA).

The Kuki-Chin-Mizo community's attack by the Bangladeshi army has been strongly denounced by the Zo Reunification Organization (ZORO), a Mizoram-based organisation working for the reunification of the Chin-Kuki-Mizo tribes of India, Myanmar, and Bangladesh.

In CHT, there are 3.5 lakh members of the Kuki-Chin-Mizo ethnic population.

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