YMA announces Rs 3.24 lakh aid to Myanmar and Bangladeshi refugees in Mizoram

Mizoram has sheltered over 31,000 refugees from Myanmar who fled Bangladesh, and YMA members have been assisting the refugees with humanitarian aid

The central committee of the Young Mizo Association (YMA), the largest civil society in Mizoram, has decided to provide humanitarian assistance of Rs 3.24 lakh to refugees from both Myanmar and Bangladesh taking shelter in the state.

After a meeting of the office bearers of the central committee of the YMA on Monday, it was decided that Rs 3 lakh would be given to the refugees from Bangladesh taking shelter in Mizoram’s Lawngtlai district along the Mizoram-Bangladesh border.

A press note issued by the Central YMA said that Rs 24,000 is to be used by the Tuipuiral Group YMA for the purchase of 3 bundles of silpouline for Myanmar refugees taking refuge in the southern part of Mizoram’s Myanmar border Champhai district.

Since the military coup d’état on February 1, 2021, Mizoram has sheltered over 31,000 refugees from Myanmar who fled Bangladesh. The YMA members have been the primary civil society organisation assisting the refugees with humanitarian aid.

The majority of the refugees come from Mizoram’s neighbouring Chin State, which is home to the Chin community.

At least 547 Bangladeshi refugees have sought refuge in southern Mizoram since November 20, last year, after the Bangladeshi military cracked down on civilians under the pretext of launching insurgency operations against the Kuki-Chin National Army (KNA), which had been fighting for a separate state in the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh.

The central committee of the YMA had earlier asked the state government to lodge all the refugees from Myanmar in improved relief camps.

A meeting of the Central Coordination Committee (CCC), the second highest decision-making authority of the central YMA, on Wednesday in Aizawl said that allowing the refugees to scatter in every place across the state would create more problems for the state and its inhabitants.
“We are appealing again to the state government to establish improved relief camps for the refugees from Myanmar and to lodge all of them so that they would not scatter everywhere,” the resolution said.

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