Mizoram law student takes 93-year-old Myanmar refugee under her wings at Covid Care Centre

Ramnunmawii stays on after testing negative to be beside Myanmar national.

May 11, 2021 02:24 pm | Updated May 12, 2021 12:05 pm IST - GUWAHATI:

C.T. Ramnunmawii. Photo: Special Arrangement

C.T. Ramnunmawii. Photo: Special Arrangement

A Mizoram-based law student and a 93-year-old Myanmar national were strangers to each other and separated by an international border but the second COVID-19 wave has made them develop a bond.

C.T. Ramnunmawii, a first-year student of Lloyd Law College in New Delhi, tested negative twice after returning to Mizoram capital Aizawl on April 6. She went into quarantine at a designated hotel but shifted to a Covid Care Centre (CCC) after testing positive four days later.

She was likely to have been discharged after recovery on April 20, a day after a nonagenarian woman was admitted to the CCC.

Ms. Ramnunmawii came to know that the woman, one of the hundreds of Chin people who had fled the military junta in Myanmar, had come in search of her daughter who had been living in and around Aizawl for years. The Chins have an ethnic affinity with the dominant Mizos of Mizoram.

“This lady was seemingly lost as all others who had accompanied her from Champhai (about 190km from Aizawl, near the Myanmar border) had been quarantined. She was also quite incoherent,” Ms. Ramnunmawii, 24, said.

“I felt she needed an attendant and sought the permission of the doctors to accompany her to the Zoram Medical Hospital, where she was being shifted. It did not feel right to let her fight the virus alone in a strange place,” she told The Hindu .

The law student tested negative again on April 27 but stayed on until her “grandma” tested negative and was discharged. They spent 14 days together.

And while she was at the hospital, Ms. Ramnunmawii networked with a cousin and some friends for locating the old woman’s daughter.

“Her family and a cousin of mine came to pick us up on the day we were discharged,” she said.

Aizawl resident Kima Khawlhring said the law student heaved a sigh of relief after escorting the nonagenarian to her daughter’s house in the Mualpui locality of the State capital a few days ago.

“I will be spending a few days at my cousin’s place on the outskirts of Aizawl and wait for the situation to improve before going home,” Ms. Ramnunmawii said.

She is from Ruantlang in Champhai district, not far from where the 93-year-old and others from Myanmar had crossed over to take refuge.

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