1,500 IDPs in Chin State town reportedly pushed to return home

By Admin 29 Mar 2023

DMG Newsroom
29 March 2023, Paletwa, Chin State

Some 1,500 people from 363 households who were displaced by fighting between the military and Arakan Army (AA) and were sheltering in Samee town, part of Chin State’s Paletwa Township, have returned home voluntarily, the junta-controlled broadcaster MRTV said on Wednesday.

Camps for internally displaced people (IDPs) in Samee town were closed as IDPs have already returned home, the regime mouthpiece said.

When DMG asked the IDPs about the matter, however, they said they did not return to their homes of their own accord, and rather were pushed to return home on March 28 because the regime was pressuring authorities to close the displacement camps in Samee.

“We returned home as we were forced to leave the displacement camps,” said a resident of Seinsin Village in Paletwa Township. “We were summoned to attend the meeting every two days and were told that the displacement camps would be closed. We have decided to return home as we no longer receive relief supplies.”

The military regime has reportedly provided each IDP returnee with K100,000, along with some household items and consumer goods.

“The military regime arranged vehicles and boats to make it convenient for us to return home,” said one IDP returnee.

The IDP returnees are from about 20 villages including Wetma, Leikkhaung, Koewa, Sarwa and Meiksarwa, along the upper reaches of the Kaladan River in Paletwa Township.

Some had been taking refuge at displacement camps in Samee town for as long as three years, after being displaced by fighting between the military and Arakan Army in March 2020.

The military has not yet cleared landmines for the IDPs and so they are worried about their safety, said a local man from Lelhla Village in Paletwa Township.

“We asked the military to repair our homes and clear landmines so that we can return home in a safe manner. We were told by the military to return home without any worries,” he added.

Many IDP returnees depend on the forests for their livelihoods, and they are struggling to make ends meet as landmine risks limit the extent to which they dare venture into the woods to forage.

It has been more than four months since the Myanmar military and the AA observed an informal ceasefire on November 26. Since then, more than 6,000 displaced villagers have returned to their homes in Arakan State and neighbouring Paletwa Township, at the arrangement of Myanmar’s military regime.