GUWAHATI, India -- Hundreds of settlers have fled India's oil and tea-rich northeastern State of Assam after a string of bloody attacks by separatist guerrillas, officials and media reports said on Sunday.
Many hundreds more are preparing to leave after guerrillas of the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) killed more than a 100 people since October, mostly non-Assamese settlers.
The rebels are fighting for a separate homeland and accuse the federal government of plundering the state's mineral resources and flooding the region with outsiders.
"Many people came here in recent months are leaving," a state government official said. "It is a trickle yet, but there is lot of panic." About 200 laborers from the impoverished eastern State of Bihar waited for trains to take them home, the Indian Express said in a report headlined, "Exodus Starts".
About 500 men had already returned to Bihar, the report said quoting government officials.
Biharis make up between four and five percent of Assam's 25 million people.
(Reuter)