Aizawl: The central committee of Young Mizo Association or Central YMA (CYMA) will stage a sit-in-demonstration on Monday to extend solidarity with the Kuki-Chin (Mizo) refugees who fled their homes in Bangladesh due to armed conflict.
The event will be held in front of Raj Bhavan here, a CYMA leader said.
The objectives of the proposed demonstration are to extend solidarity and acknowledge the hardships faced by the ethnic Kuki-Chin refugees, CYMA general secretary Prof. Lalnuntluanga said.
Over 328 people from Bangladesh’s Chittagong Hill Tracts (HTC) have taken shelter in south Mizoram’s Lawngtlai district since they fled their village in November, according to officials.
Recently, a senior citizen allegedly died of hunger in a jungle along the Bangladesh-India border.
The deceased along with other refugees were camping in the jungle near Mizoram border without enough food after being allegedly pushed back by the Border Security Force (BSF) from a border village, which guards the Indo-Bangladesh border.
The CYMA had earlier expressed regret for the incident and wished that such incidents don’t happen in the future.
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A local leader also said that many Bangladeshi refugees are now stranded in the jungles as they are not being able to cross the border.
The refugees fled their homes following the armed conflict between Bangladesh Army and Kuki-Chin National Army (KNA), an ethnic insurgent group that demands a separate state for the Kuki-Chin community in Bangladesh.
Mizoram shares a 318-km-long international border with Bangladesh.
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