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21 killed amid fresh unrest in Papua
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Fired up: People react as a building burns after protests broke out in Wamena, Papua, on Monday. Protesters burned down a government office and other buildings in Wamena, according to an AFP report. (AFP/Vina Rumbewas)
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t least 21 people were reportedly killed in fresh clashes in Jayapura and Wamena, Papua, on Monday, prompting the government to block internet services in the two cities as it grapples to bring order to the region.
Unrest first broke out in the morning in the provincial capital of Jayapura, when police and military personnel besieged the Cendrawasih University auditorium. The hall had been serving as a temporary shelter for some 300 students who had fled cities outside Papua after racial abuse suffered by Papuan students in Surabaya, East Java, and elsewhere last month.
Security personnel reportedly ordered the students to leave the auditorium in an orderly manner but the latter did not respond. After three hours of waiting, they charged in and forced the students into buses that would transfer them to the Waena Museum and Arts Center.
But according to witnesses, security personnel opened fire on the students once they arrived.
"We were brutally attacked the minute we arrived at the museum," one of the students, Kales Bagau, told The Jakarta Post on Monday, adding that at least two students had died on the spot, while some security personnel had been injured.
Papua Health Agency head Aloysius Giay confirmed that four people had died in the incident.
"One [was] from the Indonesian Military [TNI] and the three others were Papuan students," he said.
