Three years after ethnic violence erupted in Manipur in May 2023, tens of thousands of internally displaced persons remain trapped in relief camps originally meant to be temporary, facing chronic shortages of food, sanitation, and medical care. According to Deccan Herald, the camps have become sites of a second, invisible crisis — one of neglect, disease, and political abandonment that outlasts the bullets. As of publication, neither the Manipur state government nor the Union home Ministry has issued a public response to the specific conditions documented in the camps.
Here is a number that should stop you cold: three years. That is how long families in Manipur's relief camps have now been living under tarpaulins that were stitched for weeks. The cots are the same. The rations are thinner. The children who arrived as toddlers are starting school — if you can call a corner of a community hall a school — and the nation that once watched Manipur burn has, with the efficiency of a channel-changer, moved on. According to Deccan Herald's investigation into conditions inside these camps, what was once an emergency has quietly metastasised into something more insidious: a permanent underclass living in the administrative blind spot of indian democracy.
The violence that tore Manipur apart in May 2023 — a conflagration between the valley-dominant Meitei community and the hill-dwelling Kuki-Zo tribes — produced images searing enough to dominate headlines for months. But the aftermath has produced something headlines find less photogenic: monotony. The monotony of waiting for a home that no longer exists, of queuing for dal that arrives irregularly, of sleeping in a camp where sanitation infrastructure was designed for a fortnight and has now endured a thousand days.
What makes Manipur's relief camps uniquely devastating is not just the material deprivation — though Deccan Herald documents that in harrowing detail — but the political vacuum that surrounds them. The Manipur state government, still led by chief minister N. Biren Singh and his bjp administration, has faced persistent criticism for failing to broker a lasting peace or a credible resettlement plan. India Herald reached out to the Manipur Chief Minister's office and the Union home Ministry for comment on the conditions in the relief camps and the absence of a public resettlement framework; neither had responded as of publication. The ethnic divide has, if anything, hardened: Meitei-dominated valley areas and Kuki-Zo hill territories remain effectively partitioned by mutual suspicion and, in many corridors, by armed groups whose ceasefire compliance is spotty at best.
Recent events underscore the fragility. The NIA is probing fresh killings in Kangpokpi and Ukhrul districts, according to local manipuri news bulletins. The killing of six naga civilians, attributed to Kuki-Zo militants by multiple Manipur-based news outlets including the Imphal Free Press — and the subsequent public statement by the Kuki-Zo Council, which expressed regret over the incident — exposed just how many armed faultlines remain active beneath the surface calm. The matter is under active investigation by the NIA, and full details of the Council's statement and the circumstances of the killings remain to be established in legal proceedings. Meanwhile, reports of exchanges of fire between CRPF personnel and armed groups continue to surface, a reminder that the security apparatus itself is operating in a grey zone between peacekeeping and containment.
Inside the camps, the human toll is compounding in ways that resist easy quantification. Deccan Herald's reporting highlights the cascading failures: water supply systems that have broken down without repair, overcrowding that breeds respiratory and waterborne illness, mental health crises — particularly among women and adolescents — that go almost entirely unaddressed. There are no therapists in most camps. In several, there are no doctors at all. The healthcare that exists is provided by a patchwork of NGOs whose own funding has dwindled as donor fatigue sets in.
The children are perhaps the starkest indictment. Three academic years have now been disrupted or lost entirely for thousands of students. Makeshift classrooms, where they exist, lack textbooks, electricity, and in many cases qualified teachers. An entire generation of manipuri children — Meitei and Kuki-Zo alike — is being educated not in schools but in the curriculum of displacement: uncertainty, scarcity, and the daily lesson that the state has more urgent things to attend to than their futures.
And here is the vantage that the headlines keep missing. Manipur's relief camps are not a footnote to the violence — they are becoming the violence's most durable product. Every month these camps persist without a political resolution, the ethnic divide deepens. Families who might once have returned to mixed neighbourhoods now cannot imagine it. Children who have grown up hearing only their own community's narrative of victimhood will carry that narrative into adulthood. The camps are not holding places; they are incubators of the next crisis, hardening identities and grievances in real time.
The central government's approach has oscillated between security deployments and studied silence. delhi has poured paramilitary forces into the state — CoBRA battalions, CRPF columns, assam Rifles — but the political bandwidth for Manipur has been conspicuously thin. No sustained, high-level mediation effort between the communities has been publicly visible. The criticism that the Centre claims credit for unrelated achievements while ducking accountability for Manipur has grown louder, not quieter, as the crisis ages.
Manipur, the state famous for Loktak Lake, classical manipuri dance, and a sporting culture that has produced Olympic medallists, now carries a second, grimmer distinction: it is arguably home to one of India's largest and longest-running internal displacement crises of the 21st century — a characterisation supported by the scale and duration of displacement documented by Deccan Herald and the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, though precise comparative figures remain contested. The camps that were meant to be bridges back to normalcy have become the normalcy itself — and that, more than any single act of violence, is the scandal.
The question that now hangs over Manipur is not whether peace will come — some attenuated, exhausted version of it probably will — but what kind of society emerges from these tent cities when it does. Three years of separation, suspicion, and shared suffering within ethnic silos do not produce reconciliation. They produce two communities who have forgotten how to live beside each other, and a state apparatus that has learned it can look away without consequence. That is the deadly thing inside Manipur's relief camps. It is not a disease or a shortage. It is the slow, administrative manufacture of permanence from what was supposed to be temporary.
More from india Herald
Key Takeaways
- Three years after Manipur's ethnic violence erupted in May 2023, tens of thousands remain in relief camps originally meant to last weeks, according to Deccan Herald.
- Healthcare, sanitation, and education infrastructure in the camps has collapsed or never existed, with NGO funding dwindling due to donor fatigue.
- The NIA is investigating fresh killings in Kangpokpi and Ukhrul, and armed exchanges between CRPF and militant groups continue, per local manipuri news reports.
- The Kuki-Zo Council issued a public statement expressing regret over the killing of six naga civilians, attributed to Kuki-Zo militants by Manipur-based outlets; the matter remains under NIA investigation.
- Three academic years have been lost for thousands of displaced children, creating a generational education crisis.
- No sustained, visible high-level political mediation between communities has been reported, despite heavy paramilitary deployment by the Centre. Neither the Manipur state government nor the Union home Ministry responded to india Herald's request for comment as of publication.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the main reason for Manipur's violence?
The violence stems from ethnic tensions between the valley-dominant Meitei community and hill-dwelling Kuki-Zo tribes, triggered in May 2023 by disputes over tribal status and territorial claims. Unresolved political grievances and armed group activity have sustained the conflict.
Who is the cm of Manipur now?
N. Biren Singh of the bjp continues to serve as chief minister of Manipur, though his administration has faced sustained criticism for its handling of the ethnic crisis and displaced populations. india Herald contacted his office for comment; no response had been received as of publication.
How many people are displaced in Manipur's relief camps?
While exact current figures are difficult to verify, tens of thousands of internally displaced persons from both Meitei and Kuki-Zo communities remain in relief camps across Manipur as of mid-2026, according to Deccan Herald and other reports.
What is Manipur famous for?
Manipur is renowned for Loktak Lake (the largest freshwater lake in northeast India), classical manipuri dance, its vibrant sporting culture that has produced Olympic medallists, and its rich biodiversity including rare species like the sangai deer.
click and follow Indiaherald WhatsApp channel