The phenomenon of bamboo flowering – a famine, which began in 2006 has been plaguing the Chin people year after year. Currently, they need relief measures in order to survive.
According to a source, most of the villages near the Indo-Myanmar border areas are dependent only on a meager amount of relief from other places.
“Actually, we can still survive because of the support of Non-Government Organizations (NGO). If they cut out the assistance we cannot think what will happen. We will not be able to survive,” a local head of Ngaphaite village in Than Tlang Township, in Chin State, western Burma said.
“We have already sold our domestic animals to people in a neighbouring country, – Mizoram State, India, in order to escape from this murky famine,” he added.
According to a report, currently some villages of Than Tlang Township and Matupi Township are depending upon the Country Agency for Rural Development (CAD), which is based in Rangoon. It supports them through its ‘Food for Work’ program, so that villagers construct roads and get bags of paddy in return.
CAD has been providing 100 bags of paddy for workers, who have done one mile of construction. The project will be completed in this month, after that there will be no more food supply for the village.
Some villages, which cannot participate in this program of CAD, are, in fact struggling for their survival and eating only tubers and bulbs, maize, banana as staple food, a local person said.
“We had produced at least 2000 tins of paddy and 1500 tins of maize in our village in earlier years. Due to the bamboo famine we could only harvest 300 tins of paddy and 20 tins of maize in 2008 and we did not get any relief from inside or outside Burma. Fortunately, we got 4 bags of rice from a Korean citizen, this month. We had provided that to the families, who are in a difficult situation,” a villager of Ngaphaipi said.
This is the season of agricultural work, but villagers are giving priority to the ‘Food For Work’ program of CAD in order to solve the present situation.
“We do not want to leave agricultural work really. But, we have no choice, we have to do it for our daily livelihood and we do not know how to survive after finishing this program,” an elderly person from Ngaphaite village said.
