A foundation created in the memory of State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi’s mother is building 50 houses for Chin internally displaced people (IDPs) in Thantlang Township, Chin State.
The village where the houses will be located, Tikir, is the home community of Burma’s vice president Henry Van Thio.
Moe Zaw Oo, executive director of the Daw Khin Kyi Foundation, said that the homes would be 24 x 24 x 10 feet in size and have been requested by the Chin State government, at a cost of 6.5 million kyat (US$4,395) per house. Construction is 60 percent completed, and expected to be done in early March.
The project will house some of the thousands of IDPs displaced by intensifying clashes between the Burma Army and Arakan Army in Paletwa Township, where many locals have fled their communities.
“Some IDPs have sought refuge in their relatives’ homes, but some IDPs have sought refuge in [the village of]Meezar. These IDPs are not living in proper shelters in IDP camps,” Moe Zaw Oo said.
More than 100 people from 20 ethnic Bawm families moved to Tikir village in Thantlang Township from Meezar village in Paletwa Township on November 15 of last year.
Chin State social welfare minister Pau Lum Ming Thang said that the state would provide highland paddy farmland to the IDPs in Tikir.
“We have provided food and shelter to them. If they are interested in farming, the government has already created 350 acres of highland paddy farms,” he told Khonumthung News.
Moe Zaw Oo said that the Daw Khin Kyi Foundation would provide solar panels to the 50 houses and will work on the construction of a water pipeline for the IDPs.
The same foundation also built houses in storm-hit Hakha Lay village in Tonzang Township in Chin State.
Estimates of internally displaced people throughout Burma are in the hundreds of thousands.