Security forces retrieved the bodies of the four soldiers a day after Indonesia’s military chief on Tuesday dismissed the separatist group’s claim that it had killed more than a dozen government soldiers in the attack.
Admiral Yudo Margono confirmed only one fatality and said four other soldiers were missing. The rest returned to their post, he said. Five soldiers were wounded and in a stable condition and evacuated to a hospital in Timika.
Rebel spokesperson Sebby Sambom said in a statement that his group’s fighters were holding the remains of 12 soldiers, including nine he said “were arrested and executed”. The rebels offered no proof to back up their statement.
Sambom said earlier the rebels carried out the attack in retaliation for Indonesia’s “massive military operation” in Papua and the killings of two rebels in a shootout with security forces last month.
Margono rejected the rebel claims as “fake news”, and said the military operations in Papua were launched with a view to keep casualties at a minimum. However, he said authorities will increase pressure on the rebels around several separatist strongholds, including in Nduga.
The rebels in February stormed a single-engine plane shortly after it landed on a small runway in Paro and abducted its pilot. The plane initially was scheduled to pick up 15 construction workers from other Indonesian islands after the rebels threatened to kill them.
Authorities will continue to prioritise a peaceful approach for the release of Mehrtens, Margono said.
The kidnapping of the pilot was the second that independence fighters have committed since 1996, when the rebels abducted 26 members of a World Wildlife Fund research mission in Mapenduma. Two Indonesians in that group were killed by their abductors, but the remaining hostages were eventually freed within five months.
The pilot kidnapping reflects the deteriorating security situation in Indonesia’s easternmost region of Papua, a former Dutch colony in the western part of New Guinea that is ethnically and culturally distinct from much of Indonesia.
Papua was incorporated into Indonesia in 1969, after a UN-sponsored ballot that was widely seen as a sham. Since then, a low-level insurgency has simmered in the region, which was divided into five provinces last year to boost development in Indonesia’s poorest region.
Saturday’s fighting is the latest in a series of violent incidents in recent years in Papua, where conflicts between indigenous Papuans and Indonesian security forces are common.
Rebel attacks have spiked considerably in recent years as the government extended infrastructure and the controversial Trans-Papua Highway, a road being built into the heart of highland Papua that has inflamed resistance. Many indigenous Papuans believe the moves are a threat to their identity and traditional way of life, prompting attacks by separatist groups that have been followed by further Indonesian military deployments.
The military activities in Papua have raised concern among rights groups who say the security approach that had been implemented by Jakarta for decades has proven unable to resolve violence in the region.
Amnesty International Indonesia called for prioritising dialogue with the separatists to prevent potential human rights violations and a larger humanitarian crisis. Data collected by the rights group showed at least 179 civilians, 35 Indonesian troops, nine police officers and 23 independence fighters were killed in clashes between rebels and security forces between 2018 and 2022.
