In India’s Mizoram, programs for Myanmar refugees struggle to survive amid US aid cuts

Until Myanmar’s military seized power in February 2021, Lianbawih (name changed) led a comfortable life as a doctor in Yangon. But because he was strongly opposed to the takeover, he decided to join the Civil Disobedience Movement against the newly installed regime. He remained in Yangon, working under a pseudonym at a private hospital, but was forced to hide every time junta soldiers arrived to carry out one of their routine inspections. Finally, after three years of living in the shadows, he decided it was time to leave. This came in February 2024, as the junta imposed conscription on men aged 18 to 35 and women aged 18 to 27. “The letter calling for my mandatory service came just a week after I left Yangon,” said Lianbawih, 33, who asked that only his first name be used for safety reasons. He fled to Mizoram, a state in India’s remote Northeast bordering Chin State. There he joined an organisation—which he did not want to be identified for security reasons—that provides free consultations and medicines to refugees. He also worked at a clinic offering free check-ups three times a week. But the clinic was forced to shut down this year following cuts to the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) by the administration of President Donald Trump. The agency has long been a core funder of projects on both sides of the border. In Rihkhawdar, a border town in Chin State controlled by resistance forces, around 70 percent of USAID-linked programs at the Rih Hospital have been indefinitely suspended. The hospital serves residents of more than 100 villages across the Chin Hills as well as refugees arriving from Mizoram. Dr. Lalzauva, one of 11 doctors at the hospital, told Myanmar Now that they were preparing to shut down a crucial project that provides free healthcare and medicine to pregnant women and children under the age of five. “All our funding has stalled since Trump came to power,” he said. Further complicating the situation is the tightening of movement along the Indo-Myanmar border by the Assam Rifles (India’s paramilitary force operating in border areas) amid plans to put up a fence between the two countries. “People in Chin State cannot easily cross into India to get treatment,” said Dr. Lalzauva, adding that the junta has also heavily restricted access to other parts of Myanmar. “So the majority of the population depend on our hospital.” First established in 2001, the hospital’s operations first came to a grinding halt after the 2021 coup. It reopened on March 15, 2023, after anti-junta resistance forces captured the area from the military. “We were so happy that we could re-open. But now we are facing money troubles,” Dr. Lalzauva said. A view of the Chandmari Kanan refugee camp, located near the town of Lawngtlai in India’s Mizoram State (Photo: Aatreyee Dhar / Myanmar Now) Non-profit network supporting refugees crumbles Soon after assuming office in January, Trump issued an executive order pausing all US foreign aid for 90 days, reflecting his long-held view that the country spends too much on international assistance. His administration soon pushed for deeper cuts: a roughly 92 percent reduction in USAID funding that would remove nearly US$60 billion from aid programs worldwide, according to the State Department. In 2024, the United States spent $128.6 million for humanitarian initiatives in Myanmar and an additional $111 million in foreign assistance that supported education, agriculture and governance programs in the war-torn country, according to ReliefWeb. The agency was projected to deliver $259 million in aid to Myanmar in 2025, with about $172 million, or 72 percent, allocated to humanitarian aid and social programs. But the bulk of that funding has been halted, in a major blow to local providers of basic services to vulnerable populations. If the termination of this assistance continues throughout Trump’s second term, Myanmar stands to lose close to $1.06 billion in American financial aid by 2029, deepening the humanitarian crisis in the country and weakening US influence across the region. On the Indian side of the border, these cuts have crippled an entire ecosystem of nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) supporting refugees, including those not directly funded by the US government. Even groups that get most of their support from private donors, like Medecins Sans Frontiers (MSF), or Doctors Without Borders, are impacted by the sharp decline in USAID funding because of the effect of these cuts on the humanitarian system as a whole. “For example, when food aid is cut, MSF’s clinics are filled with malnourished children. When shelter programs are cut, MSF does not have anywhere to refer vulnerable patients after they’re discharged from the hospital,” the group said in a statement. In Mizoram, MSF provides health care to Myanmar refugees, particularly in border areas like Zokhawthar and Lawngtlai District, offering specialist care, running clinics, and distributing aid while also addressing broader health gaps for vulnerable groups in India. Dr. Rodinga, a spokesperson for Myanmar’s parallel National Unity Government (NUG), told Myanmar Now that USAID cuts have severely impacted healthcare along the India-Myanmar border. He noted that the agency provided substantial support to organisations like the Chin Health Organization and the Chin Human Rights Organisation, both of which have played a key role in supporting refugees in Mizoram and Myanmar’s Chin State. “In India, the biggest impact is on the health of refugees,” he said. USAID funded two major health projects in Mizoram—one implemented by Jhpiego, an international non-profit health organisation affiliated with Johns Hopkins University, and another centred on tuberculosis surveillance and community mobilisation, run by Piramal Swasthya, a not-for-profit public health organisation supported by the Piramal Group, an Indian conglomerate with interests in healthcare and financial services. Major projects under Jhpiego in Mizoram have been shut down, with only a few initiatives continuing, after John Hopkins University scaled back USAID-supported programs following US federal funding cuts. Piramal Swasthya also closed its Mizoram project after the withdrawal of donor funding. Attempts to contact Jhpiego officials in Mizoram were unsuccessful, and the report will be updated once a response is received. Lalbiakengi Chawhte, the state program coordinator for Piramal Swasthya, told Myanmar Now that the TB project began in January 2023 and was closed in February 2025, just a month after Trump assumed office. “Our focus was on tuberculosis, and we covered eight districts in Mizoram. With the stoppage of USAID funding, our entire staff of 52 people were laid off, and our work came to an abrupt halt,” she said. Hrea Thlarea, who fled to Mizoram with his family in January 2022 (Photo: Aatreyee Dhar / Myanmar Now) Reduced rations, inflation hits refugees When Hrea Thlarea, 46, fled military violence with his wife and four children in January 2022, he sold all the furniture in his carpentry workshop for 800,000 kyat ($380) to hire an SUV to the Indian border. Now, he lives in a refugee camp atop a hill near Champhai in Mizoram, where diminishing international aid has forced families like his to choose between basic necessities. “In 2022, organisations such as Zoram Entu Pawl, ADRA [the Adventist Development and Relief Agency] and Action Aid would frequently visit,” he said, referring to the relief groups that once brought truckloads of supplies at least twice a month. “Only ADRA visits us now, and that's just once a year.” The sharp decline in assistance reflects a broader crisis rippling through refugee camps along the Indo-Myanmar border, where cuts to USAID are worsening an already dire humanitarian crisis of dwindling ration supplies and almost no regular income sources. In March, the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR announced it had been forced to freeze $300 million in planned activities worldwide following the elimination of USAID programs. From 2020 through 2024, the US contributed nearly $10 billion to the agency, making it one of the top three donors. That funding included $75 million in flexible reserves, which allowed the agency to deploy resources for crisis response within 72 hours. In Asia and the Pacific, expenditure fell to $478 million in 2024, a decrease of 17 percent from $575 million in 2023, according to the agency’s global report. “Brutal funding cuts in the humanitarian sector are putting millions of lives at risk,” Filippo Grandi, the UN high commissioner for refugees, said in a statement at the time. “The consequences for people fleeing danger will be immediate and devastating.” The impact on the ground was swift. The one time ADRA visited Thlarea’s camp in 2025, they brought two kilograms of rice, four kilograms of soybeans, a kilogram of sugar and four packets of oil per family—a fraction of what was once provided. He supports his family by working as a day labourer, clearing fields during harvest season or assisting the forest department, earning him 500 to 600 rupees (roughly $7) a day. He sometimes buys potatoes from local vendors and resells them in the camp for extra income. “Now I have to spend my daily wage to buy the ration on my own,” he said. “I cannot spend on meat. We also have to spend a lot on charcoal to boil and grill our food.” An employee working in one of the few non-profits still operating along the border said that while her organisation had previously been supplying dry food rations, November marked the final month of distribution. “Earlier, we implemented projects across several districts in Mizoram, supporting both refugee and host communities. However, after Donald Trump came to power, continuing these activities became impossible,” she said. The NGO had been working in several districts, including Aizawl, Siaha, and Lawngtlai, but this year its operations were scaled down to Champhai district alone, where it targeted beneficiaries with health and sanitary kits along with dry food rations. The dry food rations included rice, lentils, and chickpeas. “From December, we can no longer continue the distribution of dry food rations,” she added. Clothes and chillis dry at night at refugee camp in Mizoram (Photo: Aatreyee Dhar / Myanmar Now) Operations scale down, staff laid off Several local NGOs working along the border told Myanmar Now that they relied on annual grants from UNHCR to support refugee-related work. But cuts to UNHCR funding from USAID have significantly reduced their resources, forcing some organisations to halt operations or scale back relief efforts considerably. UNHCR works with partner organisations, including ADRA and Action Aid, to assist Myanmar refugees in Mizoram. Rama Dwivedi, a spokesperson for the UNHCR in India, said she was unable to provide exact data on the situation in the state because the agency doesn’t have an operational presence in the Northeast. However, she confirmed that its operations in India have been significantly affected by global funding shortfalls. In 2025, UNHCR needed $17.3 million to protect and assist forcibly displaced and stateless people in India, she said, but as of the end of November, only 51 percent had been funded. “Like many other international organisations, UNHCR is facing a severe global funding crisis and has been forced to re-prioritise and downsize activities,” she said. The downscaling of projects has led directly to job cuts at local non-profits working on the ground. Myanmar Now spoke with former employees of NGOs that had worked on refugee projects along the Indo-Myanmar border, who were laid off following the funding cuts. All requested anonymity because of security concerns. Aid workers providing assistance to refugees from Myanmar say discussing the current situation is sensitive because of restrictions under India’s Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA), which imposes strict limits on their activities. “It is difficult to speak to the media because the FCRA does not allow NGOs to support non-nationals. Unlike in other countries, we cannot publicly discuss the impact of these cuts because whatever work is left could be stopped as a result,” one former NGO employee told Myanmar Now. Moreover, funding has become increasingly political since, he added, “we are part of an indirect proxy war between the countries surrounding Myanmar”—referring to India and China, whose strategic rivalry is playing out through political influence. Though refugees have been granted safe sanctuary in Mizoram, they are not formally recognised as such since India is not a signatory to international treaties to protect refugees. Another NGO employee who still had their job at a non-profit in Mizoram said the effects of the aid freeze will be felt next year, as the UNHCR-funded project relies heavily on USAID. “We’ve been told the scale of programming will be smaller next year,” said the employee, fearing their job could be next in line. The employee added that the US is not the only country that has changed its stance. European governments, once consistent contributors, no longer view India as a priority for aid. The prolonged conflict in Myanmar, combined with global humanitarian crises, has prompted many donors to reassess their strategies. A former NGO worker who was laid off due to the USAID cuts agreed with this assessment of the current situation. “Other donors, such as the EU and the German government, have also reduced their budgets as part of wider austerity measures. Development aid is no longer a priority for many foreign governments,” he said, asking to not be identified. While the non-profit has not yet been informed whether food distributions will be reduced, the employee said current trends suggest cuts are likely. “Some families in Aizawl camps have already gone back,” the employee said, noting that approximately 80 percent of the organisation’s work in Mizoram focuses on refugee programs. Engman, a refugee from Chin State, was pregnant when she fled to Mizoram in 2022 (Photo: Aatreyee Dhar / Myanmar Now) Federal funding challenges As if funding drying up was not bad enough, local stakeholders alleged that the channelling of funds due to pressure from the federal Indian government has further complicated the situation. Ruata, who is part of the Zo Indigenous Forum, a local advocacy group, claimed that a federal ministry had blocked the UNHCR funds for refugees. “This is because India is not a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention,” he said. However, when Myanmar Now reached out to UNHCR India inquiring whether the central government had interfered with them releasing grants to their partner organisations in Mizoram, they refused to directly address the claim. Instead, the UNHCR India spokesperson, Rama Dwivedi, said: “UNHCR operates in India under its mandate and in coordination with the Government of India. Financial arrangements with partners comply with national regulations. UNHCR engages with authorities to ensure that the assistance reaches those in need within the framework of Indian law.” But despite the lack of obligations under any treaty, New Delhi has reportedly sent funds to Mizoram—one of India’s poorest states in terms of gross domestic product, and heavily dependent on central funding—to help with refugee aid. Last year, Mizoram’s Home Minister K. Sapdanga shared with the legislative assembly that New Delhi had allocated 80 million rupees (around $880,000) for refugee-related support, of which 50 million has not yet been used. He informed the assembly that “the [30 million rupees] received during the previous administration was utilised for various relief efforts, including support for refugee camps, humanitarian aid for Myanmar nationals, and legal awareness programs.” The remaining 50 million rupees was earmarked for future relief measures, he added. A senior official from the state Home Department told Myanmar Now it had received 50 million rupees for the distribution of rice, but could not provide specific dates or other details regarding the allocation. Details relating to central funds for humanitarian aid for refugees in Mizoram was sought under India’s Right to Information Act, but no response had been received at the time of reporting. This story will be updated as and when we receive a response. While Mizoram continues to extend hospitality by allowing them to remain in the state, refugees cannot obtain identification documents that would enable them to travel freely or apply for formal employment. As a result, most are restricted to irregular, low-paying work—which is difficult to find in a sparsely populated state—and remain heavily dependent on NGO and international assistance for survival. Engman looks out at the hills of Mizoram, where her son was born after she was forced to flee conflict in Chin State (Photo: Aatreyee Dhar / Myanmar Now) Women and children worst affected Engmen was pregnant when she crossed into India at the age of 30, fleeing violence between Chin resistance fighters and Myanmar’s military junta in 2022. The decision to seek safety at Chandmari Kanan Refugee Camp meant losing access to the low-cost maternity care that NGOs provided back home. At first, life in the camp was manageable. Aid organisations delivered rations twice a month, and Engmen taught children in the camp, earning 2,000 to 3,000 rupees ($22-33) monthly. Her husband found seasonal work at 400 to 500 ($4.40-5.50) rupees per day. With steady food supplies, they could afford fresh fruit—apples at 400 rupees per kilogram and bananas at 200 rupees—to supplement her diet during pregnancy. She gave birth to her first child the next year. Then the aid dried up. Pregnant again, Engmen stopped teaching. Fruit disappeared from her meals. “Daily wage work is not regular, sometimes only three days a week,” she said. “Apples and bananas are essential for my diet, but I cannot afford them now.” Before the military coup, Engmen had never worried about maternity expenses. In Chin State’s Matupi Township, civil society groups gave pregnant women cash assistance to cover medicines and nutritious food. Now, at a sub-centre in Lawngtlai, she could access free antenatal check-ups and consultations. But when it came time to deliver her second child, she had to travel to Lawngtlai Civil Hospital, where the cost reached 15,000 rupees ($165)—nearly half a year’s teaching salary. “I wish there was some help from the NGOs to ease the financial burden,” she said. An NGO staff member who requested anonymity said the worst affected are often the wives of resistance soldiers fighting the regime, who are grouped together in camps. With their husbands away, they are left to care for their children alone, leaving them unable to work. Many of these women live with untreated trauma. “They have nightmares about loud large trucks coming. They struggle to sleep. They need mental and physical support, but they are not receiving it,” he said. Education in Chin State has also been hit hard. With more than 70 percent of the region now outside the military control, schools are being run by resistance groups. “Teachers’ wages, children’s books and teaching aids were mostly supported through USAID,” Dr. Rodinga, the NUG spokesperson said. “All of this has stopped.” The impact extends to refugee children in Mizoram, where the NUG estimates that at least 50,000 Myanmar refugees are currently taking shelter, though the number fluctuates as some return home when fighting stops. “The schools for refugee children in Mizoram were also supported directly or indirectly by USAID funding,” said Dr. Rodinga. Another major blow came in November, when the Trump administration announced that it would end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Myanmar nationals following the announcement of military-backed elections in the country, set to begin at the end of this year and continue into January 2026. The designation expired on November 25, 2025, after the Department of Homeland Security determined that Myanmar no longer met the required conditions for TPS following a review of country conditions. TPS allows foreign nationals from countries confronting an ongoing armed conflict, environmental disaster, or extraordinary and temporary conditions a work permit in the US and protection from deportation. “We have done a lot of advocacy with the Trump administration,” said Dr. Rodinga, who has been living in the US for several years now, following a brief period spent in India in the early 2000s. The NUG’s deputy foreign minister in Washington, along with its task force in the United States, has been lobbying lawmakers and organising consultations with Burmese intellectuals abroad. But Dr. Rodinga said they have not seen much progress so far. Moreover, the administration has also halted asylum and citizenship processing and extended immigration bans that affect Myanmar nationals—a move that would derail refugees who use neighbouring countries like India and Thailand as stop gaps to apply for asylum in the United States. “We are trying our best, but it is still hard.”

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