Over 200 Kuki-Chin-Mizo people from Bangladesh enter Mizoram: Official

Over 200 people from Bangladesh have fled to Mizoram's southernmost Lawngtlai district due to an armed conflict between the Bangladesh Army and Kuki-Chin National Army (KNA), an official said on Monday.

KNA is the armed wing of the Kuki-Chin National Front (KNF), a political front formed by the ethnic Kuki-Chin-Mizo community in Bangladesh, that demands a separate state and safeguard for the community in the neighbouring country.

The official said that 274 Bangladeshis, including 125 women and children, fled their villages in Bangladesh and entered Siminasora in Lawngtlai district on Sunday evening due to a recent encounter between Bangladesh Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) and KNA.

The Bangladeshi nationals, belonging to the Kuki-Chin-Mizo community, came from seven villages to take shelter in the northeastern state, he said.

The district administration and NGOs are providing relief to them on humanitarian grounds, he added. Meanwhile, Zo Reunification Organisation (ZORO) has condemned the attack on the civilians of the Kuki-Chin-Mizo community by the Bangladesh army.

The Mizo group, which works for the re-unification of Chin-Kuki-Mizo tribes of India, Myanmar and Bangladesh, alleged that the Bangladesh army has reached a secret agreement with Myanmar-based Arakan Army(AA) to launch joint operations against the KNA.

The combined forces of Bangladesh Rapid Action Battalion and AA attacked Chaihkhiang and neighbouring villages last week and abducted nine civilians, it claimed.