Armed mobs rampage through villages and push remote Indian region to the brink of civil war

Zuan Vaiphei is armed and prepared to kill. He is also ready to die.Vaiphei spends most of his days behind the sandbag walls of a makeshift bunker, his fingers resting on the trigger of a 12-gauge shotgun. Some 1,000 yards ahead of him, between a field of tall green grass and wildflowers, is the enemy, peering from parapets of similar sandbag fortifications, armed and ready.“The only thing that crosses our mind is will they approach us; will they come and kill us? So, if they happen to come with weapons, we have to forget everything and protect ourselves,” the 32-year-old says, his voice barely audible amid an earsplitting drone of cicadas in Kangvai village that rests along the foothills of India’s remote northeastern Manipur state.

Dozens of such fortifications mark one of the many front lines that don’t exist on any map and yet dissect Manipur in two ethnic zones – between people from hill tribes and those from the plains below. There, amid endless groves of bamboo and oak, young men walk by with rifles slinging from their shoulders.“Our mothers, our sisters, they fast for us, praying to God,” Vaiphei says, standing at the mouth of his bunker where he keeps a copy of the Bible alongside him.

Two months ago, Vaiphei was teaching economics to students when the simmering tensions between the two communities exploded in a bloodletting so horrific that thousands of Indian troops who were sent to quell the unrest remain near paralyzed by it.The two warring factions have formed armed militias, laying bare the ethnonationalist fissures that have long threatened to worsen instability in India’s restive northeastern region.Tucked in the mountains on the border with Myanmar, Manipur was once ruled by a patchwork of kings and tribal confederations. It appears to be a different world from the rest of India, a culture that borrows heavily from East Asia. Manipur is also a state that has never been fully reconciled to central rule and some guerrilla groups still pursue an effort to break away from India.

Ethnic clashes between different groups have occasionally erupted in the past, mostly pitting the minority Christian Kukis against mostly Hindu Meiteis, who form a narrow majority in the state. But no one was prepared for the killings, arson and a rampage of hate that followed in May, after Meiteis had demanded a special status that would allow them to buy land in the hills populated by Kukis and other tribal groups, as well as a share of government jobs.Police armories were looted. Within days, both sides were armed to unleash havoc.Witnesses interviewed by The Associated Press described how angry mobs and armed gangs swept into villages and towns, burning down houses, massacring civilians, and driving tens of thousands from their homes. More than 50,000 people have fled to packed relief camps. Those who