Aizawl, Aug 8 The biometric enrolment of refugees from Myanmar and Bangladesh in Mizoram is underway in all 11 districts of the state, officials said on Friday.
A senior official of the Mizoram Home Department admitted that the biometric enrolment process has been progressing slowly, but they are trying to accelerate the process.
“Serchhip district administration in central Mizoram first launched the biometric enrolment drive for the refugees on July 30 and subsequently other districts initiated the biometric enrolment process,” the official said.
He said that by Friday, only 11,000 refugees’ biometrics and biographic data were registered. According to the official, in many districts, the teams collecting biometric data have been facing numerous problems, including technical hurdles due to problems with electronic equipment and poor network connections in remote villages.
Champhai district, sheltering the largest number of over 13,580 Myanmar refugees, has been unable to achieve much progress in collecting biometrics and biographic data since the district started the exercise on July 31 and is also facing technical glitches.
Mizoram Chief Minister Lalduhoma’s political advisor Lalmuanpuia Punte, who is looking after the Myanmar and Bangladeshi refugee matter, told IANS that it is not certain when the process of biometric enrolment of refugees will be completed.
While around 33,000 refugees from Myanmar are taking shelter in all 11 districts of Mizoram, and over 2,370 refugees from Chittagong Hill Tracts in southeast Bangladesh are taking refuge mainly in Lawngtlai district of southern Mizoram bordering both Myanmar and Bangladesh.
Following the direction of the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), the Mizoram government has started the biometric enrolment of Myanmar and Bangladeshi refugees.
According to the official, the MHA would bear the cost of expenditure of the biometrics and biographic data collection, the Mizoram government, however, has already sanctioned Rs 38 lakh to initiate the process.
The Mizoram government has recently provided vigorous training to the district-level officials to collect biometrics and biographic data of the refugees taking shelter in the state, which shares 510 km and 318 km unfenced international borders with Myanmar and Bangladesh, respectively.
After a military coup in Myanmar in February 2021, refugees, including women and children from the neighbouring country, started coming to Mizoram seeking shelter, and now their numbers have increased to around 33,000.
The Bangladeshi Bawm community tribals from CHT have also been staying in Mizoram for over two years after they fled from their country due to ethnic troubles, following the Bangladesh Army's launch of a crackdown on the tribals.
The MHA had earlier asked both the Manipur and Mizoram governments to capture biographic and biometric details of "illegal migrants" in the two states and complete the process at the earliest.
The Myanmar refugees, mostly Chin tribes having almost full ethnic and cultural similarity with the majority Mizos of Mizoram, are sheltered in camps and relatives’ houses in 11 districts in the northeastern state.
The Bawm, also known as Bawmzo, are a small ethnic group primarily residing in the CHT of Bangladesh, and they have almost full ethnic and cultural resemblance with the majority Mizos of Mizoram.
Myanmar's Chin state shares 510 km of mountainous borders with six Mizoram districts -- Champhai, Siaha, Lawngtlai, Hnahthial, Saitual and Serchhip. Mizoram's three districts, Mamit, Lunglei and Lawngtlai, share a 318 km-long border with Bangladesh.
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