Bru Refugees in Tripura
What is the news?
Around 35,000 Bru refugees living in relief camps in Tripura would continue to receive free ration till March 31.
The home ministry has conveyed to the state government that the assistance would be available to the Bru refugees till March 31.
About Bru Refugees
- Riang or Bru tribes are one of the 21 scheduled tribes of the Indian state of Tripura.
- The Bru are the second most populous tribe of Tripura after the Tripuris.
- The correct nomenclature for this ethnic group is actually Bru although the name Reang was accidentally incorporated by the Indian government during a census count.
- The Bru can be found in the state of Tripura.
- However, they may also be found in Mizoram, Assam, Manipur and Bangladesh.
What is the issue of Brus?
- An ethnic violence forced thousands of people from the Bru tribe to leave their homes in Mizoram.
- As many as 32,876 people belonging to 5,407 families are living in the refugee camps in the Jampui Hills of Tripura.
- The displaced Bru people from Mizoram have been living in various camps in Tripura since 1997.
- In 1997, the murder of a Mizo forest guard at the Dampa Tiger Reserve in Mizoram’s Mamit district allegedly by Bru militants led to a violent backlash against the community, forcing several thousand people to flee to neighbouring Tripura.
The Bru militancy was a reactionary movement against Mizo nationalist groups who had demanded in the mid-1990s that the Brus be left out of the state’s electoral rolls, contending that the tribe was not indigenous to Mizoram