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More Papuan students return home over safety concerns
As of Monday, more than 2,000 Papuan students had returned to their home province from various cities elsewhere in Indonesia where they had been living to study, according to a statement on the Papua provincial administration’s official website.
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Indigenous community members gather in Deiyai regency in Papua to continue protesting against racial abuse inflicted on Papuans on Aug. 26. (JP/Courtesy of Dominikus Surabut)
T
he Papua provincial administration says an increasing number of Papuan students have been returning to their hometowns from their places of study outside the province over the past few weeks, with many of them citing safety concerns as the reason for their exodus.
As of Monday, 2,047 Papuan students had gone back to the province from various cities elsewhere in Indonesia where they had been living to study, according to a statement on the Papua provincial administration’s official website, papua.go.id.
Most of the students, the statement claimed, said they decided to return home because they felt uncomfortable being monitored by security officers in the towns where they were living.
Yun Tabuni, a student majoring in Indonesian literature in Manado State University, North Sulawesi, said he chose to go back to Papua because he felt insecure living in a dormitory with other Papuan students.
He claimed that security officers often went to the dormitory on “patrol”, albeit with unclear reasons, ever since a string of anti-racism protests broke out in cities and regencies across Papua and West Papua last month.
“[They] sometimes come late at night, around 11 p.m. or 12 a.m.; we are not sure why they do that,” Tabuni said.
The provincial administration's numbers showed an increase from those recorded by the Papua Police as of Sept. 12, when the latter estimated that 1,282 Papuan students who lived outside Papua had returned to the province.
