Timika, Papua (Antara Bali) - Inspector General Boy Rafli Amar, chief of
the Papua Provincial Police, has demanded an armed criminal group (KKB)
to release some 1,300 civilians that it had taken hostages in Banti and
Kimbeli kampongs, Tembagapura sub-district, Mimika District, Papua
Province, since more than two weeks ago.
The Papua Police had asked the help of prominent traditional and
religious figures to persuade the group to release the hostages, or to
allow anyone wanting to go out of the villages for medical treatment and
to get food, Amar told the press here on Thursday.
"The people there are currently oppressed and intimidated because
the group has banned them from leaving their villages. Indeed, they are
not being held in one room, but they are very much oppressed.
Communication is also restricted," he stated.
Amar described the hostage-taking incident as a violation of human
rights because the villagers have been intimidated and held at gun
point.
Some 150 babies and infants are facing food shortage because their
mothers could no longer breastfeed them. Some villagers have fallen ill
as food stock is depleting.
Since late October 2017, Waa-Banti Hospital, run by Amungme and
Kamoro Community Development Institution, has ceased operations.
Doctors, nurses, and other paramedics of the Waa-Banti Hospital had
earlier been moved to safer area following a gun shooting incident
committed by the group, targeting the hospital`s ambulance.
Amar hoped that the group would allow everyone being taken hostages
to leave their villages, and the police would send vehicles to pick them
up.
So far, the group had allowed just two persons to leave the village,
namely a pregnant woman who was about to deliver a baby, and a
51-year-old traditional miner from Blitar, East Java, who is seriously
ill.
The Police and the Tembagapura sub-district administration have
provided food in Tembagapura police office, but the armed criminal group
has prevented no any villager from picking up the food.
Several villagers, in fact, managed to escape and collect the food, but the group members later seized the food.(WDY)
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