CNN
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Separatist warring parties in Indonesia’s restive Papua area have launched a sequence of pictures appearing a pilot from New Zealand who used to be taken hostage greater than every week in the past.
The pictures launched on Tuesday display the pilot, known through native police as Philip Mehrtens, status totally clothed and it appears unhurt amongst a bunch of warring parties who’re maintaining weapons, bows and arrows and different guns.
Mehrtens used to be captured after touchdown a business Susi Air constitution flight at Paro Airport within the far off highlands of the Nduga regency closing week, with the West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB) claiming accountability and pronouncing it had burned his airplane.
The staff in the past demanded that every one incoming flights to Paro Airport be stopped and mentioned the pilot would no longer be launched till the Indonesian executive said Papuan independence.
The TPNPB launched the pictures of Mehrtens on its Facebook web page along side a observation reiterating its place.
“TPNPB has admitted the responsibility for the burning of the plane and taking hostage of a Susi Air pilot who is a citizen of New Zealand, and we keep our promise and are politically responsible,” it mentioned within the observation.
New Zealand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade instructed CNN it used to be “aware of the photos and video circulating but won’t be commenting further at this stage.”
Separatist warring parties in Indonesia’s easternmost area of Papua – a former Dutch colony – were hard independence because the area used to be introduced underneath Indonesian keep watch over following a debatable 1969 vote overseen through the United Nations.
However, combating within the impoverished however resource-rich area, the place the Indonesian army maintains a heavy presence, has escalated in recent times.
The Indonesian executive designates the TPNPB as a terrorist staff.
Papua Police Chief Inspector Mathius Fakhiri in the past instructed journalists that 5 passengers together with a child have been at the identical flight as Mehrtens, however it stays unclear what has took place to them. They weren’t discussed in the most recent observation.
