More than 200 Myanmar army personnel are taking shelter in Mizoram’s Lawngtlai district after fleeing the neighbouring country, a senior state home department official said on January 18.
The official said that 277 Myanmar army personnel entered Bandukbanga (also called Bondukbangsora) village along Mizoram-Myanmar-Bangladesh border in southernmost Mizoram’s Lawngtlai district on January 17 afternoon.
Initial reports said that the Myanmar soldiers arrived at Bandukbanga at around 4 pm with arms and ammunition and were being taken care of by the Assam Rifles there. They were being taken to the nearby Assam Rifles camp at Parva, near the Myanmar-Bangladesh-India tri-junction.
Reports said that the Myanmar soldiers fled their camp situated across Parva village after the Arakan Army (AA) militants captured the military camp. It is, however, not yet known if the camp is in Paletwa, Chin State, which was reportedly overran and captured by the AA militants on January 14.
With the latest entry of Myanmar army personnel to Mizoram, 636 Myanmar soldiers had fled their country after their camps were overran and captured by ethnic armed organizations and local civilian militia groups and crossed the international border seeking shelter inside Mizoram.
Of these, 359 Myanmar soldiers have already been evacuated to their country. While 104 Myanmar army personnel have been evacuated from different places in Mizoram to Moreh in Manipur by Indian Air Force (IAF) helicopters in three sorties in November last year, 255 Myanmar soldiers were evacuated from the Lengpui airport near Aizawl by Myanmar air force cargo and transport planes on January 2 and 9.
The home department official said that the last batch of Myanmar soldiers who entered Mizoram are most likely to be brought to Aizawl, from where they will be airlifted by Myanmar air force transport planes to Sittwe (Akyab) port town in Myanmar, like was done on January 2 and 9.
