India’s stateless babies: How lawless asylum rules leave refugees in limbo
Al Jazeera
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Mizoram, India – “Why are you screaming? You are a refugee,” a nurse told 26-year-old Jamie* as she struggled with an exceptionally painful childbirth at a hospital in India’s northeastern state of Mizoram.
A few hours later, amid her agony, Jamie’s baby Sophia was born – joining a growing group of other stateless babies born to Myanmar parents seeking refuge in Mizoram.
It has been two years since Jamie and her husband fled Myanmar after the 2021 military coup and arrived in Champhai, a bustling town in Mizoram, 320km (199 miles) from the Myanmar border.
Myanmar was no longer safe for the young couple, but life across the border has not been what they had hoped for.
“Sophia was not given a birth certificate. They say we need an Indian voter’s ID, something we cannot get since the country has also not given us a refugee ID,” Jamie says.
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