Thousands Flee Inter-Ethnic Violence in Northeast India

AFP

Traumatized, villagers flee violence by the thousands in northeast India

S. Mamang Vaiphei, a father of five, hid in the jungle for three nights, fleeing a mob attacking his village in northeast India, during an outbreak of inter-ethnic violence that has caused at least 54 deaths. “Everything was on fire… We fled, we all ran towards the jungle and tried to survive”, he recalls. “The Meiteis first burned 26 or 27 houses” , told AFP this 54-year-old man, who found refuge in the grounds of an army camp with around 900 other people. “Then they came back and finished destroying the 92 houses in the village, ransacked the church, the school and all that remained,” he continues. Around him, men, women and children, exhausted and traumatized, recount similar scenes. The states of northeastern India, wedged between Bangladesh, China and Burma, have long been hotbeds of inter-ethnic tension and separatism. The outbreak of violence in the state of Manipur was sparked by a protest last week against the possible awarding of “scheduled tribe” status to the Meiteis, the majority ethnic group in the state. This status, establishing a kind of positive discrimination, would guarantee them quotas of public employment and admissions to universities. – “Fear of death” – The Meiteis, mainly Hindus, live in Imphal, the capital of Manipur, and in its surroundings, while the tribe of Kukis, mainly Christian and minority, live in the hills. Violence broke out between Meiteis and Kukis in Imphal where, according to residents, vehicles and buildings were set on fire, and bands of Meiteis armed with guns and petrol cans went to attack Kuki villages in the hills. he army deployed thousands of soldiers, ordering them to “shoot on sight” in “extreme cases”, imposed curfews and cut off the internet. Mamang, who spent his fifth night homeless on Sunday, is among some 23,000 people the army says they have brought to safety. He says that on May 4, he fled his village of Kamuching, which had more than 500 inhabitants, when “a large crowd” stormed. spare parts and their smartphone. “All of us here, we are nervous, we are afraid of death,” Alun Vaiphei, 50, a Kuki villager from Gotangkot, also a refugee in the army camp, told AFP. “To save our lives , we called the riflemen of Assam (a neighboring state, editor’s note) to come and help us in our hiding place”, he continues. – ‘No help’ – On Sunday, life seemed to have come to a standstill in and around Imphal, where businesses were closed and roads deserted, still littered with burnt-out cars. The violence subsided, but army brigadier Sandeep Kapoor said on Sunday he still received “50 to 60 calls” for help. Its teams have rescued around 2,000 people, Kukis and Meitis, in 48 hours, a mission made difficult by the total absence of dialogue between the two communities. “We cannot move them in broad daylight because there is always the risk that members of one or the other community will see us passing through the villages and become aggressive,” another officer told AFP. A few men, small children, elderly women and young girls were huddled inside three military trucks. Among them, Leh Haokip, 35, from Gotangkot village, recounts how his house was ransacked and his cattle stolen. “We received no help from the police or the state,” he says. , distraught. “Now we don’t know what to do or where to go.”bb/stu/lth/sg/cn