NEW DELHI: Heavy fighting in war-torn Myanmar has forced nearly 4,000 people to flee into India in the last four days, Indian officials in the northeastern state of Mizoram said Monday.
The refugees, crossing thick forested routes to neighboring India, ran from clashes between rival Chin armed groups, Mizoram state home secretary Vanlalmawia, who uses only one name, told AFP.
“Many of the people have relatives on the Indian side, so they are staying with them,” he said. “Others are being housed in community halls.”
The remote hill state is already hosting more than 30,000 refugees from Myanmar, where a deadly civil war has raged since the military seized power in 2021.
A senior state police officer said “approximately 4,000 people have come in the last four days,” speaking on condition of anonymity.
Police said the fighting between the groups — both of which oppose military rule — continues for control of the region known as Chinland.
“The situation on the other side of the border remains tense, so we have not asked them to return,” the police official said.
India, which has sought to deepen ties with Myanmar as a counterweight to China’s growing influence, has shied away from explicitly condemning the military coup.
Myanmar clashes force thousands to flee to India
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Myanmar clashes force thousands to flee to India
- The refugees, crossing thick forested routes to neighboring India, ran from clashes between rival Chin armed groups
Germany’s Merz urges ‘peaceful coexistence’ a year after deadly market attack
- The market attack happened during campaigning for legislative elections — one of several carried out by migrants that fed into a fierce debate about immigration and security in Germany
MAGDEBURG, Germany: German Chancellor Friedrich Merz on Saturday called for “peaceful coexistence” as the country marked the first anniversary of a deadly car-ramming attack at a Christmas market in eastern Germany.
Merz addressed a church ceremony in the city of Magdeburg, where the December 20, 2024, attack killed six and wounded more than 300 others.
“May we all find, today in this commemoration, comfort and peaceful coexistence, especially as Christmas approaches,” he told those gathered at the Protestant Johanniskirche (St. John’s Church), near the site of the attack.
Germany was still “a country where we show unconditional solidarity — especially when injustice prevails — standing shoulder to shoulder wherever violence erupts,” he added.
While the market reopened on November 20, guarded by armed police and protected by concrete barricades, it remained closed on Saturday out of respect to the victims of last year’s attack.
Saudi man Taleb Jawad Al-Abdulmohsen, 51, is currently on trial for the attack. He has admitted to plowing a rented SUV through the crowd in an attack prosecutors say was inspired by a mix of personal grievances, far-right and anti-Islam views.
Merz’s speech came eight months before regional elections, with the far-right AfD riding high in opinion polls in Saxony-Anhalt state, of which Magdeburg is the capital.
The market attack happened during campaigning for legislative elections — one of several carried out by migrants that fed into a fierce debate about immigration and security in Germany.
On December 13, German police said they had arrested five men suspected of planning a similar vehicle attack on a Christmas market in the southern state of Bavaria.
Police and prosecutors said they had detained an Egyptian, three Moroccans and a Syrian over the alleged plot.
