The Kuki Inpi Sadar Hills(KISH), the apex body of the Kuki tribes in Sadar Hills Kangpokpi District mourned the untimely passing of Dr Vikethonyii Kesiezie, founder, proprietor and Managing Director of Oking Hospital and Research Clinic, Kohima, remembering him as a physician whose compassion rose above the bitter lines of ethnicity, conflict and division.
In a deeply emotional condolence message, the apex body said Dr Kesiezie was “more than a physician” and described him as a healer in the truest sense, whose humanity knew no boundaries.
His death has cast a shadow over countless families who, during some of their darkest hours, found hope and healing through his work.
The Kuki Inpi Sadar Hills recalled that when the ethnic conflict left Kuki-Zo people unable to access hospitals in Imphal, Dr Kesiezie and Oking Hospital opened their doors without hesitation, providing treatment and medical care to people who had nowhere else to turn.
“In a moment when division threatened to define a people's fate, he chose compassion,” the organisation said, underscoring the extraordinary humanitarian role played by the late doctor during a period of deep ethnic turmoil.
For many Kuki-Zo families, the hospital became more than a medical institution. It became a refuge at a time when fear, displacement and restricted access to healthcare had made even basic medical treatment difficult to obtain.
The organisation said Dr Kesiezie's legacy would therefore not be measured merely by the walls of the hospital he built, but by the lives he saved and the hope he restored to countless families during their most desperate hours.
“His dedication to service and his unwavering humanity leave behind a legacy that will continue to inspire generations of healers to come,” Kuki Inpi Sadar Hills president Thangminlen Kipgen said in the condolence message.
The organisation extended its deepest condolences to Dr Kesiezie's family, colleagues, hospital staff and the countless patients whose lives he had touched.
At a time when conflict had hardened identities and deepened divisions, Dr Kesiezie's decision to treat patients regardless of their community stood out as a powerful reminder that medicine can cross borders that conflict cannot.
His passing, the organisation said, marks not merely the loss of a doctor, but the loss of a compassionate human being whose healing hands offered solace when an entire community was passing through one of its most painful chapters.
“May his soul rest in eternal peace,” it said.
The Hills Journal
K. Salbung, Churachandpur
Manipur-795128
