Update from Chin State

Recently we told of the wonderful and courageous work that our Chin volunteer leader, “Ko Min,” was doing, all thanks to the generous donations we receive from supporters. He has shared with us another story, which we relay here. He tells us of an 82-year old Chin woman who was suffering from chronic pneumonia when the Myanmar military's brutal soldiers came and burned her village to ashes. She fled across the land border with India along with the other estimated fifty- to seventy thousand Chin refugees. The woman was grievously suffering, and requested “Ko Min” and his team to help her fulfill her last wish, that when she died, that her dead body be buried in her land of birth. So when she passed away, they arranged for a motorcycle for his son; the woman’s lifeless corpse was tied to his back, and he drove this way eighteen hours back to near her place of birth (it was too risky to go back to what was left of the village, itself)!  After providing her a traditional Chin burial by himself, the driver, her son, returned to India with a heavy heart. 

And as if this heartrending story weren’t enough, ‘Ko Min” also told the story of another Chin woman, who also had been suffering from a chronic kidney disease and going to Yangon for periodic treatments until the military coup in 2021, when travel to Yangon was no longer safe. She ended up fleeing to India with her fellow villagers when the Tatmadaw accelerated its brutal attacks and raids on the towns and villages of Chin State. “Ko Min” and his team tried their best to help this ailing woman, but her health was failing day-by-day. Finally, overcoming linguistic barriers and money limitations, they tried to arrange for an ambulance to take her to a nearby hospital, but it was too late, and she passed away. “Ko Min” used this story to emphasize the urgent need for medicine and medical supplies, a vital need for all these refugees. 

Photos of both incidents are shown below.

Please also keep in mind that a generous donor has offered to match all donations through the month of March, and so anything you give now may count as double!