Residents evacuate Chin State town amid clashes, shelling

Fierce fighting between resistance and junta forces at the end of last month has displaced virtually all the inhabitants of Falam in northern Chin State, according to locals and rights advocacy groups. With a population of around 10,000, Falam is the location of the junta’s Infantry Battalion (IB) 268 base. According to an officer from the Chin National Defence Force (CNDF), nearly all residents of Falam have fled from the clashes. Three days after a battle broke out between army troops and Chin resistance forces on October 25, a shell exploded in Falam, killing a 38-year-old woman, according to the Chin Human Rights Organisation (CHRO), which reported that the shell was fired from the IB 268 base. The incident prompted virtually all the town’s inhabitants to flee, with many seeking safety across the India-Myanmar border in the state of Mizoram and others fleeing to villages in Falam Township and Sagaing Region’s Kalay Township, according to a volunteer assisting the displaced. “The people with young children, school-age children, or disabled and elderly family members mostly flee to Mizoram. They’ve also been going to Kalay Township, which is near Falam. There are also some fleeing to Yangon,” a man from Falam said. He added that most of Falam’s residents did not dare to return despite a recent halt to the fighting because they believed battles could break out again at any time. “The bombing and gunfire have stopped since October 29, but the people have fled to the different destinations that are suitable for them. They’ve all escaped the war,” he said. Falam in Chin State, seen after most residents left in late October (Photo: Salai DL Seenling) Locals said that displacement at this scale from Falam Township’s urban centre was unprecedented, although the inhabitants of the township’s rural villages had been forced to flee their homes before. Junta troops have been positioning themselves throughout Falam, a town of more than 2,000 households, since early October in preparation for an anticipated attack by resistance forces aiming to capture the town. The battles that began in late October have stopped for the moment, but tensions remain high, according to sources familiar with events in Falam. Aung Cho Oo, a spokesperson for the junta-appointed, state-level administration in Chin State, declined to comment on the state of battle between the military and resistance forces in Falam or on the conditions facing people displaced from the town. The military council’s administration is still operating in Falam Township’s urban centre, while anti-junta forces claim to be in control in rural villages. Members of the Chinland Defence Forces (CDF) captured the town of Rihkhawdar, Falam Township near the India-Myanmar border at the end of last year as well as taking control of Webula, a small town on the road between Falam and Kalay. Falam Town in 2020 (Photo: Military Council’s Ministry of Information) Resistance in the Chin Hills Located in Myanmar’s northwest, Chin State is a mountainous, remote area with few roads connecting it to the rest of the country. It emerged as one of the first strongholds of a popular armed resistance against the military following Myanmar’s 2021 coup, with locals taking up old hunting rifles to fight the coup regime’s forces. More than three years later, the CDF and other resistance groups have captured seven of the state’s towns, while the Myanmar army continues to control the state capital of Hakha, and the towns of Mindat, Falam and Kanpetlet. The army has been sending reinforcements to the town of Thantlang, some 20 miles northwest of Hakha, due to its importance for maintaining control of the state capital. Salai Htet Ni—a spokesperson for the ethnic armed group Chin National Army—told Myanmar Now in late October that his organisation had led anti-junta forces in an assault that succeeded in recapturing “90 percent” of Thantlang. Fighting may also be imminent in Mindat on the state’s border with Magway Region, which has become a target of repeated junta airstrikes. According to the Mindat-based CDF, the military bombed Mindat Township more than 70 times in October and set fire to more than 30 houses in two of the town’s wards. The CHRO reported at the end of last month that the junta conducted more than 500 airstrikes in Chin State in the three and a half years since the coup, killing more than 108 civilians including children.

Residents evacuate Chin State town amid clashes, shelling

Nearly the entire population has fled after battles spread to Falam’s urban wards and a civilian woman was killed in an artillery strike

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