In Pictures
In pictures: India’s displaced children
Children have borne the brunt of separatist and ethnic conflicts in country’s remote and underdeveloped northeast.
The seven states in the northeastern part of India (also known as the Seven Sisters) have been plagued with years of separatist and ethnic conflict, insurgency, heavy military presence and underdevelopment. Several armed groups operate in the area – some call for complete independence, while others fight for regional autonomy.
In the provinces of Assam and Manipur, for example, sepratists recruit children as young as twelve to fight against the government.
According to the International Displacement Monitoring Centre, more than a million people were forced to flee from their homes in the past 20 years.
However, the turbulence in Assam, Meghalaya, Manipur, Tripura, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram, is often neglected in mainstream discourse.
Children – society’s most vulnerable – often bear the brunt of the conflct’s effects. Many have been displaced and are being raised in shelter homes.
