47 Myanmar nationals enter Mizoram ‘fearing recruitment by Arakan Army’, take shelter in border village

47 Myanmar nationals enter Mizoram ‘fearing recruitment by Arakan Army’, take shelter in border village

Aizawl: At least 47 Myanmar nationals have entered Mizoram’s Lawngtlai district from Paletwa, a southern township in of Myanmar’s Chin State, intelligence sources confirmed Saturday. Of late, the differences between the ethnic armed groups across Myanmar’s townships, and alleged attempts at forceful recruitment, have impacted the region’s residents.

While the Lawngtlai district administration is yet to confirm the latest entry of refugees into Mizoram, a Myanmar social media news platform, The Tahan Post, quoted sources from Lawngtlai saying that around 40 people arrived at Hruitezawl village on the afternoon of 30 April. Another seven women entered the village the next day.

All of them are likely in their thirties, security sources told ThePrint.

According to a report by the Chindwin News Agency, an independent Myanmarese news organisation founded in exile, the residents of Paletwa were forced to flee into India owing to the treatment meted out by the Arakan Army (AA), the largest ethnic armed organisation in the neighbouring country, based in Rakhine State. The group also operates in parts of Chin State, and took over Paletwa earlier this year.

The Arakan Army supposedly told the Chin armed groups not to enter the Paletwa region as it has established its own governance there, news agencies reported.

Reports in Myanmar and Bangladesh also said that the Arakan Army is preparing to relocate thousands of Bangladeshi nationals in Paletwa township, although it was not clear whether these included the people from Arakan living in Bangladesh or the Rohingya refugees.

With concerns about the potential influx of people from Bangladesh into Paletwa and news of the Arakan Army forcibly recruiting new rebels, the Myanmar nationals have left town and sought refuge near the Indo-Myanmar border in southern Mizoram.

On April 19, some AA cadres at the Miza locality in Paletwa announced the decision to recruit youngsters into the group, according to The Tahan Post. Tahan is a neighbourhood in Kalemyo town of Sagaing Region, inhabited by a large number of people who speak Mizo.

Earlier this month, the Chin National Army (CNA) took over two camps of the insurgent group, Zomi Revolutionary Army (ZRA) in Ton Zang Township of Chin State’s Tedim district, sources in India and Myanmar confirmed ThePrint.

More than 13,000 children from Myanmar in Mizoram

There are at least 34,282 Myanmar refugees taking shelter across the 11 districts of Mizoram (as on April 29), the state home department records reveal. Of them, 13,310 are children from different places in Myanmar.

More than 18,000 refugees are staying outside the relief camps with their relatives or friends, or in rented houses. Another 15,938 are staying at relief camps in seven districts of Mizoram, state records show.

However, there are no shelters in central Mizoram’s Serchhip, northeastern Khawzawl, Kolasib district along the border with Assam or Saitual along the state’s border with Manipur.

Last Thursday, 62 relief camps of the 147 constructed for the Myanmar nationals were destroyed in a wind-driven hail and thunderstorm that lashed Mizoram.

(Edited by Tikli Basu)