United by marriage and trade: This Mizoram town's relations with Myanmar run deeper

Between November 12 and 13, when the Myanmar army conducted airstrikes on its villages along the international border in Mizoram, around 5,000 people crossed the bridge that connects India with Myanmar.

- Prawesh Lama

Not all of them checked into the makeshift tents that function as refugee camps. There were many who stayed in the homes of Indian residents at Upper Zokhawthar, a Mizoram border village, for almost a week before returning. The influx of refugees from Myanmar could be increasing every month, especially since the 2021 military coup. It has prompted the Centre to ask the Mizoram government to record the biometric data of refugees.

The influx could also be a security threat in future, security agencies say, but for most people in this border town, around 6,000 Myanmar nationals living across the bridge in another country are not foreigners.

Residents of the town are in fact opposed to a border fence to curb the infiltration. Most say the people in Myanmar villages across the border, especially Chin State, do not just share the same ethnicity but also have become their relatives because the porous border has led to cross-border marriages and business partnerships.