NC Hills survivors in pathetic condition

Longrangty Longchar
Morung Express News
July 23

With the VIOLENCE AND killings in Assam’s NC Hills  still on, the Indigenous Women Forum of North East India (IWFNEI) are touring the troubled areas. The organization not only provided relief materials to the Dimasa and the Zeme Nagas living in various refugee camps but also helped a meeting of the two communities to meet and have interactions for the first time since the conflict started this year in March.  The IWFNEI is a forum made up of indigenous women  organisations of the North East. The Naga Women Union of Manipur,  is also a member of the Forum. It reached  NC Hills on July 21, toured the area and distributed relief materials on July 22 and returned today. 

Interacting with The Morung Express after their return from NC Hills today, the Convener of IWFNEI, Dr. Gina and the president of Naga Women Union Manipur, Grace T Shatsang said that the displaced people are living in very pathetic conditions in the refugee camps. Children cannot go to school and there is shortage of basic needs in the camps, like health care facilities, sanitation, electricity and other amenities. Besides, there is also an underlying tension among the people living in the camps. They have to depend mostly on relief materials and most of the aid, according to the displaced people, are coming from private organisations and not from the government’s side, the IWFNEI informed. 

Gina also informed that the visiting IWFNEI delegation, on July 22, met with the Dimasa displaced people who are holding up in Kalachand relief camp, and distributed relief materials. Gina informed that civil originations and the churches of NC Hills are holding meetings. They are planning to submit a memorandum to the Governor of Assam for his intervention into the ongoing crisis, it was informed. 

She also said that for the first time a meeting of the Dimasa and Zeme Naga people living in various relief camps, could meet and share their pain and suffering and understand each others’ problems. In fact, the IWFNEI asserted that there is no conflict between the common citizens of the two communities. The IWFNEI disclosed that the displaced people expressed suspicion over  involvement of an “unseen force” in the current  conflict. The unseen force could be the “armed groups” and even the security forces, the IWFNEI convener disclosed. 

About yesterday’s incident where two houses in a Dimasa village were razed, the IWFNEI members said the incident happened near an army outpost. They maintained that they could not see any patrolling of security forces, although the government had deployed seventy battalions of security forces to contain the situation. 

The IWFNEI however regretted that they could not meet with the Dimasa students’ leaders or other Dimasa leaders.

Nonetheless, they could have useful interactions with the Zeme Council members. The IWFA appealed to the people of both the communities to interact and negotiate to solve the problems at hand. Besides, the organization also appealed to the people not to believe in rumours and not to jump to conclusion without proper verification whenever there is violence in NC Hills. It may be noted here that various Naga organisations including the Naga Hoho and the NSF have visited NC Hills and distributed relief materials to the displaced people.