Phillip Mark Mehrtens of Christchurch, a pilot for the Indonesian aviation company Susi Air, was abducted by independence fighters from the West Papua Liberation Army, the armed wing of the Free Papua Movement, who stormed his single-engine plane shortly after it landed on a small runway in Paro in the remote Nduga district.
The plane, carrying five passengers, was scheduled to pick up 15 construction workers who had been building a health centre in Paro after a group of separatist rebels led by Egianus Kogoya threatened to kill them, said Nduga district chief Namia Gwijangge.
The rebels released all five passengers because they are indigenous Papuans, rebel spokesperson Sebby Sambom said earlier.
Conflicts between indigenous Papuans and Indonesian security forces are common in the impoverished Papua region, 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 mineral-rich region.
