Imphal, July 3: Kholi Matia is a long way from home.

Caught in an impasse between two communities in Nagaland and Manipur, the 54-year-old vegetable vendor from Punanamei village arrived here today to sell her wares.

Kholi usually heads for Kohima, where she earns between Rs 5,000 and Rs 20,000 by selling the vegetables she grows and harvests. All was well till the Southern Angami community put up a road blockade preventing her and nearly 40 other Mao traders from going to Nagaland.

More than 20 traders from four Mao villages came in four trucks this morning carrying sacks of vegetables, fruits and flowers and found a place along Khuyathong road of Imphal city to sell their produce. All these traders, belonging to villages in Senapati district, used to head for Mao Market in Kohima before tension escalated between the two communities.

The traders stopped going to Kohima after Southern Angamis launched a blockade against Maos since June 23 after the latter opposed construction of a road by Nagaland in the Manipur portion of Dzukou Valley along Manipur-Nagaland border.

Tension between the two communities escalated further with Angamis reportedly damaging eight vehicles of the Mao community and allegedly issuing quit notices to them, forcing Mao students to flee Kohima and return home.

"The traders came to Imphal today after we appealed to them to sell their vegetables here until the Dzukou Valley dispute and Angami-Mao problem are settled," Ibotombi Khuman, convener of League of the Fourth World People, Imphal, a citizen's organisation, said.

The loss suffered by Mao farmers because of the blockade is estimated to be in crores of rupees. "After the Southern Angamis blocked us, I stopped going to Kohima. All the vegetables I harvested and collected rotted away. I lost around Rs 80,000 during the past 10 days," Kholi said.

Mao town, Manipur's gate to Nagland, has a vegetable market. However, the market is not large enough to sell all the vegetables, fruits and flowers of over 40 villages.

Appealing to both the governments to find an amicable solution to the Angami-Mao tension and also the Dzukou Valley dispute, the traders and citizen organisations of Imphal appealed to the Manipur government to provide a temporary marketplace for Mao people in Imphal till they can resume their trade in Kohima.

Seven citizen's organisations jointly submitted a representation to chief minister Okram Ibobi Singh to provide a temporary market space for the traders .

In a related development, the Archbishop of Imphal, Rev. Dominic Lumon, and the Bishop of Kohima, Rev. James Thoppil, have appealed to the Mao Council, an organisation of Mao community and Southern Angami Peoples Organisation to settle the present standoff between the two communities through dialogue.

In a joint statement issued here, the church leaders said no problem was solved through confrontation but only through "care-frontation".