3 Myanmar nationals with bullet wounds cross into India

Guwahati: Three Myanmar nationals with serious bullet wounds were admitted to a hospital in northeast India on Friday after they crossed the border, police said.

About a dozen people from Myanmar moved into Manipur late Thursday after firing by Myanmar forces in the border town of Tamu, said Vikramji Singh, a police officer.

They were given shelter by the residents of Moreh, an Indian border town, who took them to a hospital, Singh said.

Authorities on Friday pushed eight of the Myanmar nationals back into their home country and hospitalized the injured ”purely on humanitarian grounds,” Singh said.

The security crackdown in Myanmar following its Feb. 1 military coup has sent people fleeing across the border into India.

State and Central authorities haven’t given any figures, but some State ministers have said the number could be in the hundreds. One village has given shelter to 34 police personnel and one firefighter who crossed into India over the last two weeks.

The Mizoram government had allowed refugees to enter and provided them with food and shelter. But the Home Ministry has told the four border States, including Mizoram, to take measures to prevent them from entering India except on humanitarian grounds.

The ministry said the States were not authorized to accord refugee status to anyone entering from Myanmar, as India is not a signatory to the UN Refugee Convention of 1951 or its 1967 Protocol.

Last week, Mizoram’s Chief Minister Zoramthanga wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and said “India cannot turn a blind eye” to the humanitarian crisis unfolding in his State.

Zoramthanga wrote in the letter that the people of his State, who share ethnic ties with the refugees from Chin communities in Myanmar, “can’t remain indifferent to their plight.”

India shares a 1,643-kilometer (1,020-mile) border with Myanmar and is home to thousands of refugees from Myanmar in different States.