JAYAPURA, Indonesia — Indonesian safety forces stated Saturday they’ve recovered the our bodies of six conventional gold mining employees who had been lacking since a separatist assault at their camp within the restive Papua area nearly two weeks in the past.
Gunmen stormed a gold panning camp within the Yahukimo district of Highland Papua province on Oct. 16, killing seven employees and setting hearth to a few excavators and two vans, stated Faizal Ramadhani, a nationwide police member who heads the joint safety power.
Hours later, a two-hour shootout passed off between members of the joint safety forces of police and army and the rebels occupying the camp, Ramadhani stated.
The West Papua Liberation Military, the army wing of the Free Papua Group, has claimed duty for the assault.
Eleven employees who had hid within the jungle have been rescued safely after Indonesian safety forces cleared the camp. Nevertheless, they solely discovered one physique, and the six different victims had been declared lacking till their rotting our bodies have been recovered early Friday close to a river, just a few kilometers from the camp. Two of the stays have been charred and the 4 others had gunshot and stab wounds, Ramadhani stated.
It was the most recent in a sequence of violent incidents in recent times in Papua, the place conflicts between indigenous Papuans and Indonesian safety forces are frequent.
Insurgent spokesman Sebby Sambon confirmed the group’s fighters carried out the assault. He stated the group had warned all employees to go away Indonesian authorities initiatives in addition to conventional gold mining areas, or they might be thought of a part of the Indonesian safety forces.
“The West Papua Liberation Military is accountable for the assault Oct. 16 at Yahukimo’s gold panning camp,” Sambom stated in an announcement supplied to The Related Press on Saturday. “As a result of they have been outsiders and have been a part of Indonesian intelligence.”
Indonesia’s authorities, which for many years has had a coverage of sending Javanese and different Indonesians to settle in Papua, is making an attempt to spur financial growth to dampen the separatist motion.
Papua is a former Dutch colony within the western a part of New Guinea that’s ethnically and culturally distinct from a lot of Indonesia. Conflicts between indigenous Papuans and Indonesian safety forces are frequent.
Papua was included 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 area, which was divided into 5 provinces final yr.
Assaults have spiked up to now yr, with dozens of rebels, safety forces and civilians killed.
Information collected by Amnesty Worldwide Indonesia confirmed no less than 179 civilians, 35 Indonesian troops and 9 police, together with 23 independence fighters, have been killed in clashes between rebels and safety forces between 2018 and 2022.