Agartala, June 6 (TIWN): To push the repatriation of Reang refugees, a three-member team of Mizoram government headed by the Joint Secretary, Home Department today held meeting with District Magistrate, North district Sanjeeb K Rathod and sought logistic and security related support from the local administration.

Altogether 460 Reang refugee families, sheltered in six relief camps in Kanchanpur subdivision are supposed to repatriate to their homeland on June 17.

To expedite the process, the three-member Mizoram government team held meeting with DM at the conference hall of DM North at Dharmanagar and discussed various issues related to repartition and left the place.

When contacted, the DM tonight informed the Mamit district authority has sought logistic and security related support from its Tripura counterpart to ensure trouble free repartition of refugees.

“We have agreed to give all possible help to Mamit district authority for this purpose”, he said. DM and SP of Mamit district and SP, North district Abhijit Saptarshi, SDMs of Panisagar and Kanchanpur also attended the meeting.

Over 37 thousand people from the Reang community were displaced in violent clashes between the ethnic Reang and Mizo communities of Mizoram in 1997-1998. The clashes occurred mainly in Mamit, Lunglei and Kolasib districts, triggered by a supposed murder of a Mizo forest department official at the Dampa Tiger Reserve. The last phase of massive exodus of ethnic Brus from Mizoram occurred in 2009.Repatriations of the Brus were held in five different phases till date. A head count recently revealed that 31,703 Brus from 5,448 families were living in the relief camps in North Tripura district.

Under the rehabilitation package, each displaced Bru family in Mizoram is assured a one-time rehabilitation of Rs. 80,000 for house construction, Rs. 5,500 for conveyance and Rs. 2,000 for makeshift. They would also be provided rice free of cost for one year.