About 120 families staying as illegal migrants in Rangvamual and Phun Cawng villages were driven out by the Central Young Mizo Association (CYMA), the largest non-governmental organization in Mizoram.
The Aizawl Post newspaper reported yesterday that the migrant workers from Burma were warned to leave on 15 May 2013 by the CYMA authorities after negotiations with local people in the last week of April. The letter of warning mentioned that the foreigners of Rangvamual and Phuncawng village have to leave those villages.
“The latest information is that 90 families from Phun Cawng village and 30 families from Rangvamual have already left,” according to the newspaper.
The CYMA had also notified in its letter that all the migrant workers of Phun Cawng and Rangvamual villages will be monitored as to whether they are leaving. The migrant workers would be driven out if they continue to stay in those areas.
The Burmese people who could not leave for Burma immediately moved to other places in Mizoram. While some approached their relatives, some families went back to Burma, said a local.
“Some families did not dare to go to Burma directly for financial and security reasons and are in trouble as such,” said a local from Mizoram.
Most of the Burmese migrant workers have been staying illegally in Phun Cawng and Rangvamual villages around 20 miles from Aizawl, the capital of Mizoram. Some migrant workers are employed in local wine factories. But the total numbers of migrant workers are not known.