First Kuki village in Churachandpur resettled 3 years after conflict began

Guwahati

The first Kuki village in Manipur’s Churachandpur district was resettled on Thursday (May 28, 2026) after three years, but only the males have returned from a relief camp, while their families continue to live there.

Khodang, a village near the “buffer zone”, is close to where the Churachandpur district meets the Imphal Valley’s Bishnupur and Kakching districts. A strip of land of varying width separating the Meitei-majority valley from the surrounding Kuki-dominated hills is referred to as the buffer zone.

Some 200 people of Khodang had fled deeper inside the Churachandpur district after the ethnic conflict between the Kuki-Zo and Meitei people broke out on May 3, 2023.

The district administration helped in the resettlement process. Local MLA Paolienlal Haokip cut a ribbon to inaugurate the village for habitation.

M. Sonsei Haokip, the Khodang village secretary, said the villagers fled and took refuge in a relief camp in Churachandpur, the district headquarters, when a mob set most of the houses ablaze.

“We have 45 families here. We rebuilt our houses with ₹1.7 lakh, which the government provided to each family,” he told journalists.

He said only the male members of a few families have returned to occupy their new-look homes. The others, including women and children, would return gradually.

Also read| Cycle of violence: On Manipur, the persistence of hostilities

The ethnic violence left more than 260 people dead and an estimated 62,000 others internally displaced. Many, mostly those who fled from villages near the “buffer zone”, continue to be in the relief camps.