There was a mass burial ceremony held in Churachandpur district to lay to rest the bodies of 87 Kuki-Zo victims who were killed in ethnic hostilities in Manipur.
At a mass burial ceremony on Wednesday in the northeastern state of Manipur’s Churachandpur district, the bodies of 87 Kuki-Zo victims who died in the ongoing ethnic hostilities were laid to rest.
At the Kuki-Zo Martyrs Cemetery in Sekhen, there was a funeral service complete with Christian customs, tributes, and a gun salute by volunteers from the local defense. There was a meeting in Tuibuong before to it.
At the burial location, thousands of people gathered in the midst of tearful scenes as the victims’ families said goodbye. The coffins were then buried with wreaths and traditional scarves covering them.
“We are really relieved that so many of our brothers and sisters’ bodies were buried in accordance with our traditions and ceremonies. For the families that lost loved ones, it was a long wait. “We will now carry on with our fight for justice for the deceased and our demand for a separate government for the Kuki-Zo people,” stated Ngaineikim, president of the Kuki Women Organization for Human Rights.
Following the district-wide curfew that was imposed on Monday night and would last for two months until February 18, due to fighting between two groups of Kuki and Zomi locals that resulted in about thirty injuries, the event was held under heavy security.
This was the victims of Kuki-Zo’s second mass burial this month. Following orders from the Supreme Court, the bodies of 64 victims of the ethnic violence between the Kuki-Zo and Meitei groups were moved from morgues earlier this month, ending a six-month wait.
The corpses of four Meitei casualties were airlifted from a morgue in Kuki-majority Churachandpur to Imphal, while the bodies of sixty Kuki-Zo victims were moved from two morgues in Meitei-dominated Imphal to Kangpokpi and Churachandpur districts.
The 19 bodies of the Kuki-Zo victims that were transported to Kangpokpi were buried in a mass burial at Phaijang hamlet on December 15. Along with 46 additional Kuki-Zo victims whose remains were being held at the Churachandpur Medical College morgue, the 41 bodies that were transferred to Churachandpur were buried on Wednesday.
The fatalities interred in Churachandpur included a 70-year-old woman named Domkhohoi Haokip as the oldest and a one-month-old infant as the youngest.
“I have buried my husband’s remains, having waited almost six months. The family feels a sense of relief. I now have to take care of my young child by myself. The victim’s wife told reporters, “I hope the deaths of my husband and others don’t go in vain and we get a separate administration from the Manipur government.”
In addition to the 87 victims buried today, the Indigenous Tribal Leaders Forum (ITLF), an umbrella organization of Kuki groups in Churachandpur, reports that 41 more victims have already been buried and that 11 additional community members are missing (this number is in addition to the 19 Kuki-Zo victims buried last week in Kangpokpi).
Since May 3, there have been ethnic confrontations in Manipur between the Meitei and the indigenous Kuki-Zo groups. At least 196 people have died and about 50,000 have been displaced as a result of the ethnic violence.
The bodies of Kuki-Zo victims had lain unclaimed in Meitei-dominated Imphal, while Meitei victims’ bodies had been held in Kuki-dominated Churachandpur for more than six months as a result of deep divisions that developed after the fighting began, with one community forbidding the other from entering its territory.
