NEW DELHI: India has deported the first batch of Myanmar refugees who entered the country fleeing a military coup in 2021, the border state’s top minister said on Friday, weeks after India ended its visa-free policy on its border with Myanmar.
There were no immediate details on how many people were deported, but since the 2021 coup, thousands of civilians and hundreds of soldiers have fled to Indian states, where communities between the two countries share ethnic and family ties.
This worried New Delhi because of the risk of communal tensions spilling over into India.
“The first batch of Myanmar nationals who entered India illegally were deported today,” N. Biren Singh, chief minister of the northeastern state of Manipur, said in a post on the X platform.
The state has been wracked by sporadic violence that has claimed nearly 200 lives since ethnic clashes broke out in May last year.
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Biren shared a video on X showing some of the female refugees being taken out of security vans and taken to the airport.
New Delhi is not a signatory to the 1951 UN Refugee Convention, which clarifies the rights of refugees and states’ obligations to protect them, nor does it have its own refugee protection laws.
In his post, Biren wrote that the country provided “refuge and assistance to those fleeing the crisis in Myanmar for humanitarian reasons with a systematic approach.”
India last month said it would end a decades-old visa-free policy with Myanmar for its border citizens on grounds including national security, days after the home minister announced the fencing of the 1,643 km (1,020 mile) border with Myanmar.
