A Mizoram lifeline for 4 Myanmar army rebels

At around 2pm on Monday, four men entered India secretly after a two-day journey — first on foot and later in a van from Myanmar's Hakha province to Zohkhawthar, a village in Mizoram along the Indo-Myanmar border.

- Prawesh Lama

CHAMPHAI, MIZORAM:

Sometime last week, the four enlisted Myanmar army men had donated their weapons to the civilian rebel forces, thrown off their uniforms, and deserted the military.

Thara Soe (26), Soe Aung (30), Thiha Kyaw (26), and Tin Ko Ko Kwin (30) are not the first Myanmarese soldiers to enter India along the border in Mizoram. But the case of these four men is different from the nearly 800 Myanmar soldiers who entered India at different times over the last year and surrendered at the police stations here. Unlike the four, the others were not deserters, but used the porous Indo-Myanmar border to flee to India for safety after being surrounded by rebel forces. They were later sent back to Myanmar from the international border in Moreh (Manipur).

These four men claim they have voluntarily deserted the army and now want to live in India until the civil war ends in Myanmar. The four, who checked in to a refugee camp in Champhai, Mizoram on Monday evening, spoke to HT, sharing details of their escape from Myanmar.

"We were posted in Hakha where fighting is intense now. This is one of the places where the army and People's Defence Forces are still trying to take control of the town. Last month, 15 soldiers were killed. We are from the same batch and enlisted in the army last year. Joining military for men between 18 and 35 is mandatory. We lasted four months," Khant Thara Soe said.