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Mizoram : Reang exile ends |
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New Delhi has finally prevailed upon an unwilling Mizoram government to take back the Reang refugees who have been in forced exile in Tripura for a decade.
A thousand Reangs - also called Brus - have returned to the villages they call home in the last few weeks, ending a long stalemate over repatriation between the Mizoram and Tripura governments.
Sources in the Union Home Ministry said as many as 800 Reangs were repatriated to Mizoram in the last fortnight.
The process began after a series of meetings between New Delhi and the Mizoram government. However, the administration in North Tripura district, where the refugee camps are located, has been finding it difficult to co-ordinate the repatriation process due to snags in the telecommunication network for over a week now. Over 30,000 Reangs were displaced during an ethnic conflict with the Mizos in 1997. They migrated to Kanchanpur subdivision of North Tripura, where refugee camps were set up for them.
Officials of the Mizoram home department said the state was facing difficulties in handling the refugees due to a resource crunch. Some of those who have already returned claim to be activists of the Bru National Liberation Front (BNLF), which campaigned for an autonomous district for the Reangs of Mizoram in the 1990s.
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