Papua: Nine people were killed in an attack by armed separatists in Indonesia's easternmost region of Papua, police said on Saturday.
According to police in the provincial capital Jayapura, the deadliest incident in recent years occurred in the remote hilly area of ​​Naduga on Saturday morning.
"It is true that there was an attack on civilians, which resulted in ten (people) being shot, nine of whom died," Faizal Rahmdani, director of criminal investigation at Papua Regional Police, told state news agency Antara. He said officials were investigating but had given priority to evacuating civilians.
Saturday's attack comes just days after protests against a new law dividing the region into five provinces, along with South Papua, Central Papua and Highland Papua. According to the government, the new administrative regions will accelerate development, improve public service delivery and provide Papuans more opportunities to join the civil service.
However, critics argue that the move would give Jakarta more power over the remote, resource-rich region, where the low-level struggle for independence has since become part of Indonesia following a controversial UN-supervised vote in 1969. has been tampered with.
The West Papua Liberation Army, designated by the government as a terrorist organization, earlier this month rejected an administrative carving out that threatened to kill any officers involved. According to a report released this week by the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict, the West Papua Liberation Army has uncovered "an unprecedented level of violence in Papua" since its "declaration of war" in 2018, mainly due to the ability of the group to Due to gain more weapons.
According to the report, Papuan separatist fighters have become more strategic in their attacks, actively engaging Indonesian security forces in the fighting and increasing their attacks on civilians.
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