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New Delhi: Rs 250 for a litre of petrol. Rs  5,000 for an LPG cylinder. A 50-kg bag of rice for nearly Rs 3,000. These are the prices many residents of Manipur’s Kangpokpi district say they are paying as a month-and-a-half-long blockade has choked the supply of essential commodities into Kuki-Zo majority areas.

Sixteen months after the Union government announced “free movement” in violence-hit Manipur, residents of Kangpokpi say that while people may be allowed to travel under security arrangements, food, fuel and cooking gas are not moving freely. As essential supplies dry up, many now fear that hunger could become the next humanitarian crisis.

Also read: Over 30 Houses Torched in Naga-Kuki Clashes Along Manipur’s India-Myanmar Border

The shortages come amid a month-long blockade imposed by Naga groups, which has disrupted the movement of goods into Kuki-majority areas as tensions between the two communities have escalated. Kangpokpi depends on two major supply routes. One connects the district to Imphal, the capital, through Kanglatongbi, while the other links it to Dimapur in Nagaland through Senapati district.

Residents say supplies from both directions have been disrupted, leaving trucks carrying food, fuel and other essentials unable to reach the district.

Kangpokpi residents suffer as essential services fail to reach them

Since then, for the people living in Kangpokpi, the political dispute has translated into an everyday struggle for survival. In Saikul, a town in Kangpokpi district. With LPG cylinders becoming nearly impossible to obtain, many families have returned to cooking on wood-fired stoves, finding firewood has become part of life’s daily struggles.

A family cooks using firewood as the blockade called by Naga groups isolates Kangpokpi from supply lines in Manipur. Photo by arrangement.

For Goupu, a local volunteer who helps residents of Saikul and people living in relief camps, the crisis never ended – it has only entered a new phase lately.

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