Ethnic Riots in India: Village Reduced to Ashes, Dozens Dead and Thousands Displaced

NEW DELHI – The road to Heiroklian is smooth and fresh, with a sign proclaiming it as part of the government of India’s development initiatives. But ethnic violence has reduced the village to smoldering ashes.

Sanatomba searched the ruins of his sister’s house in the northeastern state of Manipur, trying to salvage anything of value, but could find only traditional benches.

“This used to be my sister’s kitchen,” said the 20-year-old woman.

“It was her room and she kept her TV there, the fridge there, the almirah (wardrobe) for clothes there. But now everything she lived with her husband, four children and other family members is gone forever,” she was quoted as saying. Channel News AsiaTuesday (9/5/2023).

More than 50 people have been killed in the hilly border region in clashes between the majority ethnic Meitei, who are mostly Hindu, and the mainly Christian Kuki tribe.

Thousands of troops have been deployed to restore order, while some 23,000 residents have fled their homes for safety to army-run ad-hoc camps for refugees.

Brother Sanatomba was among them. They were Kuki’s ethnicity, and he believed he and his family could never return.

“He told me to come here and look for anything I could find,” he said, his hands and feet smeared with black soot.

Another village suffered a similar fate, its three settlements strewn with broken doors, burning water tanks and forced metal bars.