Blockades Are Putting Lives Of Women, Children At Risk In Manipur’s Relief Camps
The blockades mounted by community vigilantes in Manipur make it hard for critical relief material, especially medicines, to reach relief camps. It is the women and the children who suffer the most
On May 30 this year, Lamvah Touthang’s second daughter celebrated her first birthday in a relief camp in Churachandpur. In the camp, a rundown government youth hostel that became a quarantine centre at the peak of the pandemic, the child is called ‘miracle baby’ because she was born in the jungles where her mother hid after the ethnic violence that began last May.
On May 4, Lamvah, then 34, and her family had fled their village, Uttangpokpi in Chandel district, about 51 km east of Churachandpur, when it was attacked by armed men identified by the villagers as “Meitei militants”. The family was forced to spend close to a month in the forest surviving on vegetables such as yam, tuaiki (a sour fruit) and na chang (banana stem) growing in the jhum (slash and burn) farms. There was no water except in a stream close to the village.
“I gave birth using water from just one bottle I filled from the stream,” Lamavah told Behanbox. “With the whole village of 38 houses dependent on the stream, water was extremely scarce.”
She delivered her daughter the day the family had to leave for Churachandpur after trucks to transport the refugees were arranged by a local tribal body. The baby was named Ngah Zemkim after Touthang’s mother, as per tradition, although everyone insisted that she should have been named ‘Ngah Galzam’ – someone who has to flee home in a crisis.
Lamvah and her daughter are among the around 60,000 persons displaced by the civil strife in Manipur between her community, the Kuki Zo tribes, and the Meiteis. This strife entered its 14th month this July. Government officials said that roughly 33,000 persons from the Kuki Zo tribes have been displaced to hill districts such as Churachandpur and Kangpokpi (where they are in majority). The remaining displaced are Meiteis who dominate the valley across religion and caste. The conflict that broke out over a Manipur High Court recommendation for Scheduled Tribes status for the Meiteis has led to the unofficial separation of Kuki Zo-dominated hill districts from the valley.
The divisions have become so trenchant that areas in the hills have become no-go zones for the Meiteis and the valley for the Kuki Zo. Buffer zones have come up along the boundaries separating the two communities as if they are countries at war. Local relief workers in Churachandpur told Behanbox that the separation and blockades have created a particularly challenging situation for those in relief camps.
In the valley, blockades have been imposed by Meitei women, or Meira Paibis, of essential goods from the valley. And the women and men from the Kuki Zo tribe have periodically blocked national highway No. 2, a crucial lifeline connecting the valley to Nagaland through the Kuki-dominated hill district of Kangpokpi and the Naga- dominated district of Senapati. In June, the Kuki Women’s Union had blocked NH-37, connecting Assam’s Cachar valley to the Imphal valley via the Naga-dominated Tamenglong district, after tribal houses were burnt down in Jiribam in fresh post-election clashes.
This reporter could not physically access relief camps in the valley since she belongs to the Kuki Zo community. Behanbox tried contacting several relief camps in the valley but they declined to answer questions.
In the midst of ethnic tensions and sporadic violence between the two communities fuelled by the state government’s divisive politics, relief workers in Churachandpur district said, the healthcare needs of expecting and lactating mothers and young children have been hit.
Consignments of essential goods such as medicines hardly arrive at the relief camp from Imphal and have to be routed from neighbouring Mizoram, said Mary Grace Hmar, a social worker who has been doing relief work as a part of the Rural Women Upliftment Society (RWUS) based in Churachandpur.
“Last year, the Chief Medical Officer of Churachandpur told us that they didn’t receive any consignment for six months from the government. Then after November last they started getting consignments through central security forces like the Assam Rifles,” said Mary Grace.
Besides the NH-2 highway that connects Churachandpur to Imphal, a 12-seater chopper flies every Friday from Imphal to Churachandpur and brings essential items on the orders of the Supreme Court. But that service was suspended in May.
Infants At Risk
Since the start of the conflict last year, 554 babies were delivered in relief camps, officials told the media earlier this year. Of these births, 77 were cases of high-risk pregnancies.
When Behanbox visited the Sangai University relief camp in Churachandpur, eight-month-old Thanggungsei was being cuddled by his grandmother, Tinneing, 52, and the other women at the camp. When he started to cry, he was given water in a feeding bottle. His mother died of kidney failure in August last year, shortly after his birth.
“When we run out of Nestogen (brand of infant milk powder), we feed him the rice given to us at the camp,” said Tinneing. “For the formula and diapers, we rely on private donations.”
The Kuki Khanglai Lawmpi (KKL), a philanthropic organisation that has been managing 55 of the 98 relief camps in Churachandpur, has been struggling with receiving medical relief, particularly from the state government. “Around 80% of the relief material is funded by the church,” said Kennedy Haokip, a KKL volunteer. The KKL managed to build a small pharmacy through crowdfunding that distributes medicines exclusively to the internally displaced persons (IDPs), including those living outside of relief camps.
“We are buying the medicines on credit from private suppliers but they stopped the supply after we ran up a bill of Rs 8 lakh. Of that, we could only pay half,” added Haokip. Pleas to the Chief Medical Officer of Churachandpur district for help were turned down.
The 43 deaths in Churachandpur district recorded by KKL include six children who died of diseases like dysentery, measles, and the common cold. One 17-year-old died of a heart attack.
Behanbox reached out to Vanlalkungi, the Churachandpur CMO, for a comment on this health crisis several times but we have yet to get a response. This copy will be updated when we receive a response. She had told IndiaSpend last September that doctors had been paying medicines out of their own pockets and that thus far the government had not helped.
The conflict has again exposed the infrastructural inequalities of healthcare between the hill districts and the valley. Despite being the second biggest town after Imphal, Churachandpur has only one government hospital servicing apart from a number of private hospitals and a barely functional medical college that was inaugurated less than a year before the conflict broke out. Other hill districts are worse off in terms of health services compared to Imphal, which has two big government run hospitals and well-run private hospitals and clinics.
Lamvah, the mother of the ‘miracle baby’, said that she receives baby formula only once a month at the camp and has only ever received two bottles of a supplement meant to enhance lactation.
“They hold health camps now and then, but only for children,” Lamvah said, adding that no specialist ever visits these camps. Meanwhile, those displaced are hard up for money and cannot find even temporary work in a small town like Churachandpur.
No Prenatal/Antenatal Care
In December, several camps spread across Churachandpur district were moved to a bigger site, a partially constructed building in the Sangai International University. Located close to the main town, this building with no doors or windows now houses over 600 internally displaced persons. They all share one toilet.
Tinneing has been taking care of her grandson, Thanggunsei, because his father, her son, is fighting on the frontline as a “village volunteer”. He was heartbroken after his wife’s death, she said. “My daughter-in-law had no complications during her pregnancy,” she added. Tinneing’s daughter-in-law was among the six relief camp inmates who died of kidney failure.
Haokip said that the greater challenge was in procuring supplies for serious medical issues like cancer. “Generally, immunity in the camp is very low because all that the inmates get to eat is rice, potato and dal,” he said. Haokip said that his group distributes supplements like calcium, multi vitamins and folic acid to expecting and lactating mothers at the camps.
As per KKL records, there are 195 lactating mothers in the Churachandpur camps, and 29 pregnant women. Haokip said that KKL was handling up to two deliveries everyday among the camp inmates last year. Given that a majority of the funds come from the church and those displaced are largely conservative Christians, distributing condoms and birth control pills is a challenge, he said.
Neicythim, 32, at the same camp as Tinneing, is counting down the days to her delivery even as she cares for her son, who is just a year-and-a-half old. About three months pregnant at the time Behanbox met her, not only is she struggling from morning sickness but also has low blood pressure. “The health camps are not regular enough nor do they ever have a gynaecologist present,” she said. “I can only visit one if I have money.”
As per official records, at least two maternal deaths were reported from the relief camps in Churachandpur district hospital.
The mothers living at the relief camps are exceptionally weak, said Nengcha, one of the three gynaecologists in Churachandpur who works in a private hospital but also treats patients at the district civil hospital. “Sometimes we even give them blood transfusions because their haemoglobin is very low.” She said she usually prescribes iron tablets but underlines the women are also in desperate need of multivitamins such as B Complex.
Poor Nutrition
Mary Grace, the social worker, said that the civil hospital OPDs in town usually offer free check-ups to the women from the relief camps. “But then they don’t have the money to buy the medicines,” she said. RWUS has been supporting more than 350 pregnant and lactating mothers by providing them medicines and other supplements.
Mary Grace said that the quality of nutrition in the camps is woefully insufficient for a vulnerable group like pregnant and lactating mothers. “Sometimes we provide them with eggs and vegetables but are not able to cover each and every camp in the district,” she added.
The lack of nutritious food in the relief camps and the erratic supply of nutritional supplements, besides the psychological and emotional stress caused by the conflict, has affected women’s menstrual cycles, and among new mothers, their lactation.
“I have seen mothers who stopped lactating,” said Mary Grace.
Lamvah said her periods had become extremely irregular since the conflict. It was during a visit to a doctor this week that she discovered to her distress that she is two months pregnant. Caring for a 13-month-old baby and a two-year-old toddler in a camp while her husband struggled to earn was challenging enough without the stress of another pregnancy.
“I have to stop breastfeeding my daughter now,” she said. “I’m worried I may not have enough for my third child.”
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