Myanmar air strikes target rebel camp near border, panic in Mizoram village

The air strikes underlined the instability that the nearly two-year-old coup in Myanmar has caused in the region. Similar aerial bombardments in other parts of Myanmar have caused tensions with Bangladesh and Thailand.

The Myanmar military launched air strikes on Camp Victoria in Chin State late Tuesday afternoon, and it continued into the night. The Chin Human Rights Organisation said five of its cadres, two of them women, were killed in the strikes. There were raids on Wednesday as well.

Camp Victoria is the headquarters of the Chin National Army (CNA), an ethnic armed organisation in Chin State. The militia was long dormant but since the February 1, 2021 military coup in Myanmar, it has joined hands with pro-democracy civilian militias in the fight against the junta.

Residents of Mizoram’s Farkawn village, within 2 to 5 km of Camp Victoria, panicked when they heard sounds of the bombing. People working on the Indian side of the river Tiau, which demarcates the international boundary, fled to their homes in the village.

There has been no official reaction from India. Indian military sources said the bomb fell into the river, and that they had verified this on the ground.

Residents of Farkawn saw Assam Rifles personnel inspecting the area. Local activists said the shell landed 30 metres from the river bank on the Indian side.

“People are very much in shock, they are scared,” said a resident of Farkawn.

A Mizoram government official based in Champhai district, in which Farkawn is located, said a state-registered truck on the Indian side of the border was damaged in the strikes.

The official said they were “keeping a close watch” on the area but that there had been no “immediate significant” impact.

“We are watching if there will be an influx of people from across the border but until now, not many have come. There has not been much civilian movement as the site which was bombed was a training camp,” the official said.

At least 5 persons from the Myanmarese side crossed over Wednesday morning.

A Young Mizo Association (YMA) representative, who lives close to Farkawn and visited the area Wednesday, said there was an “atmosphere of fear and tension” among the villagers.

“When the explosions happened on Tuesday, some villagers were working at the Tiau river… They started running. Some working on the other side of the river ran across to the Indian side as well,” the YMA representative said, adding that villagers were staying indoors “because air strikes happened today as well”.

Mc Lalramenga, president of the local YMA chapter, said a bomb landed “around 30 metres” from the river Tiau.

“Farkawn people are frightened… No one is going to work near the border,” he said in a statement.

Residents reported hearing three more rounds of air strikes around 4 pm Wednesday. No one has left the village yet.

An Aizawl-based activist, who runs a relief organisation for Myanmarese refugees, said since there is a medical facility in Camp Victoria, Farkawn residents who live along the border consulted the Myanmarese doctors there.

“A lodge and a waiting shed had been constructed there (at Camp Victoria) for them, and that has been damaged,” the activist said.

The CNA, the armed wing of the Chin National Front, had long anticipated an attack on Camp Victoria. The Chin State has emerged as one of the main centres of popular resistance against the junta, along with the neighbouring Sagaing Region.

The CNA was among the first to join hands with the People’s Defence Force, the armed wing of the National Unity Government formed by Myanmar parliamentarians against the junta.

The fighting has seen some 50,000 refugees cross into India, mostly in Mizoram, which has shared kinship and family ties with the Chin State.

The Interim Chin National Consultative Council (ICNCC), a Chin political body allied to the NUG, condemned the airstrike on Camp Victoria, describing it as an “inhuman” act, and said such attacks would strengthen the determination of the Chin people to fight for democracy in Myanmar.

Dr Sasa, a Chin leader and the NUG’s Minister of International Cooperation, said in a message on Facebook: “This attack will make us stronger. We must remain strong and united in the face of this evil. We must all continue to fight the good fight so that justice and federal democracy will prevail in Chinland and across all of Myanmar.”