Around a dozen Christian Kuki-Zo people have been killed in renewed clashes with the Hindu Meitei ethnic group in northeastern India’s Manipur state. Several churches have been razed to the ground. The two ethnic groups have been locked in a conflict over land rights and identity since May 2023. An Indian church alliance has called for immediate steps to restore peace.
Christians take part in a peace march on December 1. photo provided
The trigger for the upsurge in violence – the third flare-up since May 2023 – was the rape and murder of a young Kuki-Zo woman on November 7. News reports said a Meitei armed group brutally attacked the mother of three, burning her alive, in Jiribam district of western Manipur.
In the days since clashes between the two sides have left at least 20 people dead, including ten Kuki-Zo men who security forces gunned down. According to Catholic news agency Fides, the shootings were in response to an attack, but the Kuki-Zo indigenous Council has referred to the victims as “village volunteers brutally murdered”. It is calling for an investigation into the killings.
When six Meiteis turned up dead on November 16, protesters in Jiribam responded by setting fire to Kuki-Zo homes and six churches, the Christian Post reported.
This growing unrest that included government buildings being set alight in the state capital, Imphal, prompted the authorities to impose a curfew.
In an appeal on November 19, the National Council of Churches in India (NCCI), expressed its “deep sense of anguish and concern” over the escalating violence. The NCCI, which represents 14 million Protestant and Orthodox Christians, called on the Indian government to deploy additional security forces to the region, and appealed for a peace process to address the underlying causes of the conflict.
“The gravity of the situation cannot be overstated. The people of Manipur are caught in a state of utter hopelessness, as their lives have been disrupted by relentless violence and insecurity,” wrote Asir Ebenezer, NCCI General Secretary.
On December 1, 1,500 Christians took part in a march for peace in Manipur, which, according to the organizers, “embodied a collective plea for healing, peace, and unity in a region deeply affected by unrest.“
The conflict in the northeastern state ignited on May 3, 2023 following a peaceful protest by the Kuki-Zo against the Meiteis’ demand for recognition as a Scheduled Tribe. This status would afford the Meitei certain privileges and protections. The Kuki-Zo community, less influential and affluent than the Meitei, contested the granting of Scheduled Tribe status fearing it would enable the Meitei people to buy land in Manipur’s hill districts. These regions are the ancestral lands of the largely Christian Kuki-Zo tribes, who fear being pushed out.
This objection by the Kuki-Zo resulted in an outbreak of Meitei violence in areas including the Imphal Valley and Churachandpur, which saw at least 15 Christians killed in the first two days of the conflict alone.
Over the past 19 months the conflict has displaced nearly 41,000 people and destroyed over 7,000 homes and more than 350 churches within the Kuki-Zo community. More than 200 Kuki-Zo individuals have lost their lives.
As the conflict continues, CSI has provided help to Christians who have had to flee the fighting. In Churachandpur district, about 60 kilometers away from the Meitei-dominated Imphal region, it supported a recently completed project to build new houses for Kuki-Zo families. The construction of the houses finished in late July 2024, and by early August, 50 displaced families had moved into their new homes.
All these families are from Manipur’s Kakching district. Their villages were burned down on May 28, 2023, and for about 15 months they lived in cramped relief camps or small rented rooms in Churachandpur.
“This new house gives me the feeling of home once again,” said Joseph, one of the grateful beneficiaries, who moved into his new home with his wife, four children, parents and 100-year-old grandmother. “In the relief camp, we were living with 40 other people in one room, sharing one bathroom,” he added.
