In the first week of May, 2023, violence broke out in Manipur, NE India, along the border with China. Extremists from the Kuki tribal group attacked members the Meitei group in anger over their attempt to also gain tribal group status, which would increase competition for scarce tribal-linked government benefits. Tens of thousands of Meitei were displaced, hundreds were hospitalized, and many were killed. Thousands entered camps on military bases while others hid in the forests. Christians and Jews were specifically targeted, and churches and synagogues were ransacked and burned. The Meitei group has historic ties to Northern Israel, from which they were thought to have been displaced by the Assyrian conquest in 721 BC.

MedEast’s director Dr. Paul Kingery travelled to India and met with a prominent Meitei Christian pastor in the last week of April immediately before the violence broke out. That connection opened the dialogue for MedEast to set up a pilot program to relocate displaced Indian families to the Garden of Eden in the Kurdistan Region of Northern Iraq, which they had prepared for persecuted and displaced Christians from throughout the world with funding from ICM in America.

Donations are now being sought to sponsor Meitei families to seek refuge through this timely MedEast project.  Any amount can be donated.  Some donors may choose to fund a house renovation for $5000 or the relocation of a family ($5000 for a family of 4, plus $500 for each additional family member) or both ($10,000).

Participating families are eligible to apply for perpetual use of a  free newly remodeled and furnished 2 bedroom home in Eden on the banks of the Tigris River, and will participate in English language and communal income generation projects there.