Aizawl: Mizoram, already burdened with thousands of refugees from Myanmar, is likely to face a fresh influx from the neighbouring country due to the aerial bombing of militant headquarters in the Chin state, close to the Indian border, an official said.
Highly-placed sources said five people, including two women, died when the Myanmar military junta launched aerial strikes on Camp Victoria, the military headquarters of the Chin National Army (CNA), an ethnic insurgent group on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Lalramliana, village council president of Farkawn, a border village in Champhai district close to the CNA headquarters, said combat jets dropped five bombs targetting the militant camp on Tuesday, killing five cadres of CNA and injuring several others.
The military junta also made another aerial strike on the CNA’s camp on Wednesday, he said.
US-based Chin Association also said five people were killed in the aerial strikes by the Myanmar Air Force.
It claimed the Myanmar Air Force exploded a bomb on Indian soil, destroying a vehicle.
The association vehemently blamed the Myanmar military junta for the aerial attacks on the CNA headquarters, also used for imparting military training to armed civilians against the Myanmar army.
Champhai deputy commissioner James Lalrinchhana said no fresh influx from the neighbouring country has been reported till Wednesday.
He said the district administration is on high alert due to the aerial bombings.
More than 30,000 people from Myanmar’s Chin state have taken refuge in different parts of Mizoram since 2021 after the military junta ousted the democratically elected Aung San Suu Kyi government in February.
Mizoram shares a 510 km porous border with Myanmar and the northeastern state is currently facing an influx from Bangladesh, with which it shares a 318 km international border.
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About 388 ethnic Kuki-Chin (Mizo) asylum seekers from the neighbouring country have taken shelter in the Lawngtlai district in the southern part of the state since November last year.
The Bangladeshi nationals fled their homes due to the alleged military offensive by the Bangladesh army against Kuki-Chin National Army (KNA), an ethnic insurgent group that demands separate state and political safeguard for the Kuki-Chin community in Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT).
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