AIZAWL: Mizoram, which is already burdened with thousands of refugees from Myanmar, is likely to face fresh influx from the neighbouring country due to the aerial bombing of a militant headquarters in Chin state close to the Indian border, an official said.
Highly placed sources said that five people, including two women, have been killed when Myanmar military junta launched aerial strikes on Camp Victoria, the military headquarters of the Chin National Army (CNA), an ethnic insurgent group on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Lalramliana, village council president of Farkawn, a border village in Champhai district close to the CNA headquarters, said five bombs targetting the militant camp, were dropped by combat jets on Tuesday killing five cadres of CNA and injuring several.
The military junta also made another aerial strike on the CNA’s camp on Wednesday, he said.
US based Chin Association also said that five people were killed in the aerial strikes by Myanmar airforce.
Also read: Myanmar bombs CNA camp near Mizoram border, three killed
It claimed that the Myanmar airforce exploded a bomb on Indian soil destroying a vehicle.
The association vehemently blamed the Myanmar military junta for the aerial attacks on the CNA headquarters, which is also used for imparting military training to armed civilians against the Myanmar army.
Champhai deputy commissioner James Lalrinchhana said that no fresh influx from the neighbouring country has been reported till Wednesday.
He said that the district administration is on high alert due to the aerial bombings.
More than 30,000 people from Myanmar’s Chin state have taken refuge in different parts of Mizoram since 2021 after the military junta ousted the democratically elected Aung San Suu Kyi government in February that year.
Mizoram shares 510-km long porous border with Myanmar and the northeastern state is currently facing influx from Bangladesh with which it shares 318 international border.
About 388 ethnic Kuki-Chin (Mizo) asylum seekers from the neighbouring country have taken shelter in Lawngtlai district in the southern part of the state since November last year.
The Bangladeshi nationals fled their homes due the alleged military offensive by the Bangladesh army agains Kuki-Chin National Army (KNA), an ethnic insurgent group that demands separate state and political safeguard for the Kuki-Chin community in Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT).