The inter-tribe couples trying to survive as their communities are ripped apart

Joshua Hangsing was downstairs when he heard his seven-year-old son cry out in pain. The family were living in an army relief camp after fleeing their home as India’s Manipur state descended into a bloody tribal conflict.

A 55-year-old from the Kuki tribal community, Hangsing didn’t stay in his Kuki-dominated village in Kangpokpi after the violence broke out because he needed to protect his wife – a Meitei woman named Meena.

Their story of love across tribal lines is rare but not unheard of in a state where the two communities lived mostly in harmony until around four months ago, when a political row over the expansion of quotas for jobs and university places exploded into a de facto civil war, with at least 50,000 people displaced and more than 200 killed.