India deports first group of Myanmar refugees who fled 2021 coup

NEW DELHI: India has deported the first group of Myanmar refugees who entered the country while fleeing a military coup in 2021, the top minister of a border state said on Friday, weeks after India ended a visa-free border policy with Myanmar.

There were no immediate details on how many people have been deported, but since the 2021 coup thousands of civilians and hundreds of troops have fled to Indian states where communities between the two countries share ethnic and familial ties.

This has worried New Delhi because of risk of communal tensions spreading to India.“First batch of Myanmar nationals who entered India illegally deported today,” N Biren Singh, the chief minister of northeastern Manipur state, said in a post on messaging platform X.

The state has been roiled by sporadic violence which has killed nearly 200 people so far since ethnic clashes broke out in May last year.

Biren shared a video clip on X showing some women refugees being brought out of security vans and taken into an airport.

New Delhi has not signed the 1951 UN Refugee Convention, which spells out refugee rights and states’ responsibilities to protect them, nor does it have its own laws protecting refugees.Biren wrote in his post that the country gave “shelter & aid to those fleeing the crisis in Myanmar on humanitarian grounds with a systematic approach”.

India last month said it would end a decades-old visa-free movement policy with Myanmar for their border citizens for reasons including national security, days after the interior minister announced fencing of the 1,643-km border with Myanmar.