India’s Manipur authorities give Myanmar refugees 1-month deadline to return home

By RFA Burmese2024.11.08

Read RFA coverage of this story in Burmese

Authorities in the eastern Indian state of Manipur are warning thousands of Myanmar nationals who fled conflict in the Sagaing region that they have one month to return home, despite the ongoing threat of junta airstrikes that wiped out many of their villages.

Sagaing has seen some of the fiercest fighting between junta troops and the armed opposition since the military‘s February 2021 coup d’etat, which has forced around 5,000 residents of the region to seek shelter in neighboring India’s Manipur state.

Late last month, Manipur authorities met with the displaced in the state‘s Kamjong and Ukhrul districts, across the border from Sagaing region’s Tedim township, and told them they would have to return home in the coming weeks, one of the Myanmar refugees told RFA Burmese.

“It remains unclear what is happening in other districts [of Manipur],” said the refugee who, like others interviewed for this report, spoke on condition of anonymity due to security concerns. “The head of Kamjong district met with [the displaced] on Oct. 23 and told them to return home by Dec. 10. The [refugees] there are now preparing to go back.”

Of around 5,000 Myanmar war refugees in Manipur state, approximately 3,000 are sheltering in the two districts, according to aid workers.

Families with schoolchildren are allowed to stay until March 2025, when exams are over, they said.

Threats back home

While towns like Kham Pat and Myo Thit in Sagaing are now under the control of the armed opposition forces, many homes were destroyed in junta arson attacks and rebuilding will be tough, another displaced person told RFA.

“In the upper area of Sagaing, Nan Aung Maw village was completely burnt down, while all the houses in Su Thar Yar ward of Aung Zeya town were also destroyed,” he said. “The refugees from these areas are preparing to return home this month. They will have to build makeshift bamboo houses, and they will face difficulties.”

Those displaced from Sagaing’s Tamu township dare not return, as the area remains under the control of junta forces and allied Pyu Saw Htee militias, he added.

An official from the Burma Refugee Committee in Sagaing’s Kabaw area who also declined to be named told RFA that the refugees were asked to return home “to prevent armed conflict at the border” and “address ethnic issues.”

“These Manipur districts have ties to Naga rebels [fighting for independence in India’s Nagaland], who entered Myanmar through the border with Tamu township to join junta troops in armed conflict,” he said.

“Some of them were killed or arrested [in Myanmar] … So, the Manipur authorities might have decided to force Myanmar refugees to return home to prevent ethnic conflicts,” he added.

Attempts by RFA to contact the U.N. refugee agency, the Myanmar Embassy in India, and the Indian Embassy in Yangon for comment on the deadline set by Manipur authorities went unanswered Friday.

Porous shared border

India shares a 1,600-kilometer (1,000-mile) border with Myanmar along its far-eastern states of Mizoram, Manipur, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh.

Junta attacks against ethnic minority insurgents and pro-democracy militias that emerged in the wake of Myanmar’s coup have forced hundreds of thousands of people from their homes in Chin state and neighboring Sagaing region, with thousands seeking refuge across the porous Indian border.

Among those who have slipped into India are supporters of those fighting to end military rule and they could be in grave danger if forced back into the arms of the junta, activists say.

Attempts by India to stem the flow of refugees from Myanmar have affected people on both sides of the border.

In August, people in western Sagaing region said their supplies of rice, cooking oil, salt, fuel and medicine were dwindling because of trade disruptions caused by Indian border gate closures.

Indian authorities cited the need to check the flow of illegal goods from Myanmar as the reason for the closures, but a diplomat at India’s Embassy in Yangon told RFA that the Indian government permits movement through designated border crossing points and any restrictions were likely imposed by Myanmar or local authorities.

India has also repatriated scores of junta troops who fled across the border to escape armed opposition offensives in recent months.

Translated by Aung Naing. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.