The Australian embassy in India has resumed interviews of Chin refugees in the country in the wake of a recent announcement by the UN refugee agency UNHCR that they still need the protection of the international community. The move comes months after the UNHCR decided in late 2018 that the refugees no longer needed international protection. The Australian embassy suspended its resettlement program for the refugees in line with that decision. “After the UNHCR decided to stop protection for Chin refugees, the Australian embassy also stopped interviewing,” said Salai Cung Dawt, head of the Chin Human Rights Organization (CHRO) office…
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Nearly 5,000 people are expected to turn up for a protest tomorrow over a long-simmering dispute about the proposed location of the new Matupi district office in southern Chin State. For months, local residents have demanded that the new office be built at the site of the current office or elsewhere in the downtown municipal area. The Chin State government, however, has already decided to relocate the office in Hpanai-Ngalai, a village eight miles away from Matupi town. This will be the second protest against the move in less than a month. “Lower house MPs, upper house MPs, members of…
Chin university students from around Burma will hold their 21st annual students’ festival in the southern Chin State town of Mindat on April 25-29. The festival, which is held at a different location in the state each year, aims to promote solidarity and mutual understanding among students from the many different Chin sub-groups. “Our objective is to have good friendship, unity and solidarity among Chin students,” Salai Thang Naing, the chairman of the Mindat University Students’ Union, told Khonumthung News. “We have many different small tribes, so we mostly focus on our own region and our own tribe. That’s why…
Figures released by a local volunteer group show that recent clashes between the Burmese army and the Arakan Army (AA) have displaced more than 2,600 people in southern Chin State’s Paletwa Township. According to a survey taken by the Paletwa Township Social Volunteer Organization, 2,640 people from 544 families in 18 villages in Paletwa are now living as internally displaced persons (IDPs) due to the fighting between the two sides. The findings of the survey, which was taken in order to assess the needs of affected villagers, were released last Thursday. Wai Tang, the chairman of the Paletwa Township Social…
An elderly Chin woman was killed in her garden last week when she was hit by shrapnel from an artillery shell fired by the Burmese army in Rakhine State’s Ann Township, according to the Chin Human Rights Organization (CHRO). Daw Padon, 78, died immediately after a piece of shrapnel hit her in the ribs while she was at her home in Wahgyi Tawng village on Friday, the group said in a statement. Her daughter, 40-year-old Daw Pamae, was also hit as they were preparing to flee, but survived with injuries to her arm. According to the CHRO statement, an army…
The United Nations refugee agency UNHCR has issued more than a thousand new cards to Chin refugees residing in India after determining that they still need the protection of the international community. “The UNHCR will continue issuing new cards until the end of April. So far, more than a thousand refugees have received the new cards,” said Salai Cung Dawt, who heads the New Delhi office of the Chin Human Rights Organization. Salai Cung Dawt told Khonumthung News that an average of about a dozen people have been going to the UNHCR office in New Delhi each day to get…
A spokesperson for the Chin State branch of the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) met with members of the local media in the state capital Hakha on Wednesday to urge them to be better watchdogs. Speaking for the army-backed opposition party, Salai Kwi Yang said that the Chin-language media needed to do more to expose the weaknesses, as well as the strengths, of the sitting state government and parliament. “We need the participation of Chin media organizations to highlight and suggest where the Chin State government and Chin State parliament are doing a good job, and where they could…
A blockade on the border between Chin State and India’s Mizoram State is making life difficult for traders on the Burmese side, who say they are running out of places to store goods intended for export. The Champai Vehicles Association, one of a number of groups involved in transporting goods through Mizoram, started blocking traffic through Burma’s No. 2 Border Trading Camp near Rihkhawdar, Chin State, into Zokhawthar, in Mizoram’s Champai District, on March 26. This has forced local traders to keep their products in warehouses until trade begins to flow again. But they say that as the dispute drags…
The Chin State government has ordered the removal of “low quality stones” from the road being constructed between Matupi and Paletwa townships, according to state MP Awng Liang. The Special Road Construction Unit 12 under the Ministry of Construction has taken responsibility for the building of the road; the area in question is between mile markers six and seven between the townships. MP Awng Liang described the stones as being yellow in color. “If they use these low quality stones, we will have to build this road again next year,” Awng Liang said, adding that the stones had since been…