Mizoram civil society body seeks refugee management policy

CYMA in Mizoram pushes for comprehensive refugee policy amid growing humanitarian crisis, addressing needs of over 40,000 refugees and IDPs.

GUWAHATI

An influential civil society body in Mizoram resolved to make the State government formulate a comprehensive policy to handle more than 40,000 refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) taking shelter in the State since 2021.

Mizoram is currently housing more than 31,000 Chin people who fled the civil war in Myanmar, some 7,000 Kuki-Zo people displaced by the ethnic violence in Manipur, and about 2,000 Bawm refugees who fled persecution in Bangladesh’s Chittagong Hill Tracts.

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The Chins, Kuki-Zos, and Bawms are ethnically related to the dominant Mizos of Mizoram.

Mr. Malsawmliana, the general secretary of the Central Young Mizo Association (CYMA), said the organisation held a meeting in the State’s capital Aizawl on Wednesday to review the progress made by a special committee constituted earlier to draft the refugee policy.

“After finding the current arrangements insufficient, we urged the Mizoram government to designate shelters and issue guidelines to handle and support the refugees and IDPs,” he said.