Gunmen kill New Zealand helicopter pilot in another attack in Indonesia’s restive Papua region

JAYAPURA, Indonesia — Gunmen stormed a helicopter and killed its New Zealand pilot shortly after it landed in Indonesia’s restive Papua area on Monday, and so they launched two well being staff and two kids it was carrying, police mentioned.

Glen Malcolm Conning, a pilot for Indonesian aviation firm PT Intan Angkasa Air Service, was shot to dying by gunmen allegedly with the West Papua Liberation Military, the armed wing of the Free Papua Motion, after touchdown in Alama, a distant village in Mimika district of Central Papua province, mentioned Faizal Ramadhani, a Nationwide Police member who heads the joint safety peace pressure in Papua.

He mentioned the gunmen launched the Indigenous Papuan passengers and set fireplace to the aircraft.

“All passengers had been protected as a result of they had been native residents of Alama village,” mentioned Ramadhani, including that the village is in a mountainous district which may be reached solely by helicopter. A joint safety pressure was deployed to seek for the attackers, who bumped into the dense jungle.

West Papua Liberation Military spokesperson Sebby Sambom instructed The Related Press that he had not obtained any stories from fighters on the bottom concerning the killing.

“However, if that occurs, it was his personal fault for getting into our forbidden territory,” Sambom mentioned, “We’ve launched warnings a number of occasions that the realm is beneath our restricted zone, an armed battle space that’s prohibited for any civilian plane to land.”

Sambom referred to as on Indonesian authorities to cease all improvement in Papua till the federal government is keen to barter with the rebels, and “if anybody disobeys, they need to bear the danger themselves.”

New Zealand’s overseas ministry mentioned in a press release that it was conscious of stories of the dying and the nation’s embassy in Jakarta was searching for data from authorities. A spokesperson couldn’t affirm any particulars.

Conflicts between Indigenous Papuans and Indonesian safety forces are frequent within the impoverished Papua area, a former Dutch colony within the western a part of New Guinea that’s ethnically and culturally distinct from a lot of Indonesia. Battle has spiked up to now yr, with dozens of rebels, safety forces and civilians killed.

Monday’s killing was the newest violence towards New Zealand nationals within the Papua area.

In February 2023, Egianus Kogoya, a regional commander within the Free Papua Motion, kidnapped Philip Mark Mehrtens, a pilot from Christchurch who was working for Indonesian aviation firm Susi Air.

Kogoya and his troops stormed a single-engine aircraft shortly after it landed on a small runway in a mountainous village. Planning to make use of the pilot to barter, Kogoya has mentioned they received’t launch Mehrtens except Indonesia frees Papua as a sovereign nation.

In 2020, seven staff of PT Freeport Indonesia, together with a New Zealand miner, Graeme Thomas Wall from Ngaruawahia, had been attcked by gunmen in a parking space in Tembagapura mining city. Wall was shot in his chest and died.

Papua was integrated into Indonesia in 1969 after a U.N.-sponsored poll that was extensively seen as a sham. Since then, a low-level insurgency has simmered within the mineral-rich area, which is split into six provinces.

Flying is the one sensible approach of accessing many areas within the mountainous easternmost provinces of Papua and West Papua.

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Karmini reported from Jakarta, Indonesia. Related Press author Charlotte Graham-McLay in Wellington, New Zealand, contributed to this report.