Severe Food Shortage in Chin State, Burma
Chin State:
It is also called Lairam in the native Chin language. It is located in the western part of Burma and is bordered by India in the North and West, by the Sagaing Division of Burma on the East, and by Rakhine State of Burma and Bangladesh on the South. (See www.CBC, USAmission.org/lairam.html). It is mountainous with minimal arable land. The rugged mountains and steep steams make communication and transportation very difficult. It does not have natural resources such as gold, silver, ruby, and oil.
The People:
The majority of the Chins occupy the Chin State and are about 400,000. Most of them are farmers practicing a shifting system of ‘slash and burn’ mountain cultivation and are very poor. The staple foods of the Chins who live in the colder areas are maize, millet, beans, peas, sweet potatoes, pumpkins, and plums. In some warmer places rice, pine apples, and bananas are grown. Most of the Chins in the rural and remote areas have been living in a very serious condition of poverty for their whole lives. The current economic system of Burma failed to develop the people, especially the Chins and the country. Poverty is their great enemy. Because of the government’s system of closing its door from the outside world, they are like being forgotten and never heard by the world although they have been living in very difficult and serious poverty. Most of the Chins are Christians and do not lose their hope from God.
Severe Food Shortage in Chin State:
In the Chin State there is an unusual natural phenomenon of the mass flowering of bamboo that occurs every 50 years in 2007. It has led to an explosion of rats which are destroying basic crops and paddy fields. The Chin farmers did not harvest any thing from their fields last year. According to the report of Chin Human Rights Organization (CHRO), at least 200 Chin villages along the Burma, India and Bangladesh border are directly affected and thousands of the people in Chin State are on the brink of starvation. According to the report of the local rural development program called ‘Chin Relief and Development Program (CRDP)’ in Thantlang Township in Chin State, the rats that have attacked the crops last year still continue attacking and destroying new crops grown in this season and the Chins will face more severe food shortage in the year to come. Now thousands of the people in the Chin State are crying for help for food for survival.
Request for Prayers and Assistance:
The Chins are very anxious to live a better life as other human beings are. But, they do not have choices under the current economic and political systems of Burma. Poverty is always attacking them at their kitchens and doors. Thousands of the Chin children are crying for food and water. God hears the voices of thousands of the Chin women crying in their kitchens with tears. He understands their pains. As believers, the Chins always pray to God and ask for assistance and blessings through their fellow brothers and sisters in Christ far and near. They stand strongly and firmly in faith even when the crosses built and established on the Chin hills as the monuments of their faith were destroyed by the Burmese soldiers with guns. Not only the Chins, but even Jesus Christ is hungry and thirsty in the Chin State and said, “Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me” Matthew 25:40. Now is the time to save thousands of lives in the Chin State. Let us share our prayers and loving and caring hearts with those who are facing serious food crisis in Chin State. May God bless you with bountiful blessings!
Rev. Dr. C. Duh Kam
Executive Minister
Chin Baptist Churches, USA
Washington, DC
Ph: 301-620-7618; Email: cduhkam@yahoo.com