Relief camps: Mizoram is awaiting a relief package that it had sought from the Centre for more than 12,000 internally displaced people from Manipur which is reeling under the ethnic violence, a senior home department official said on Monday (June 26).
Chief Minister Zoramthanga, who heads the Mizo National Front (MNF) government in Mizoram, had sought Rs 10 crore as a relief package for the displaced people last month.
Mizoram Home Commissioner and Secretary H Lalengmawia said that Minister Robert Romawia along with some other officials, including him, had called on the Union home secretary and the additional secretary in the national capital recently and requested him to release the package at the soonest.
"Even though the response of the home secretary and the additional secretary was positive during the meeting, we have not received any word from the Centre regarding the relief package till today," he said.
Home Department seeks assistance from finance department
The Home Department is responsible for handling the displaced people from Manipur and also the people who had sought refuge in the state from Myanmar and Bangladesh. Lalengmawia said that the home department has sought assistance to the tune of Rs 5 crore from the finance department to provide relief to the people from Manipur.
"For this purpose, we will also collect donations from legislators, employees of the state government, central government, corporates and commercial banks and others," he said.
According to the state home department, a minimum of 22 people entered Mizoram in the last two days which took the number of displaced people from Manipur to 12,162 as of Monday. These people belonged to the Kuki-Hmar-Mizo-Zomi group, who share close ethnic ties with the Mizo people of Mizoram. The government and village authorities set up 35 relief camps in Aizawl, Kolasib and Saitual districts for them.
Shortage of food in relief camps
According to the senior official, some relief camps have started facing a shortage of food and other materials due to lack of funds.
Kolasib district, which shares border with Assam, currently is home to the highest number of displaced people at 4,345, followed by the Aizawl district at 4,047 and Saitual district at 2,940, according to the home department data.
Mizoram also currently hosts more than 35,000 refugees from coup-hit Myanmar and Bangladesh. More than 100 people have lost their lives in the ethnic violence between Meitei and Kuki communities in the northeastern state so far.
Clashes first broke out on May 3 after a 'Tribal Solidarity March' was organised in the hill districts to protest against the Meitei community's demand for Scheduled Tribe (ST) status. Meiteis account for about 53 per cent of Manipur's population and live mostly in the Imphal Valley. Tribals -- Nagas and Kukis -- constitute another 40 per cent of the population and reside in the hill districts.
(With PTI inputs)
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