The New Zealand pilot who’s been held hostage for greater than a yr within the restive Papua area has been freed by separatist rebels, Indonesian authorities stated Saturday.
Phillip Mark Mehrtens, a 38-year-old pilot from Christchurch who was working for Indonesian aviation firm Susi Air, was handed over to the Cartenz Peace Taskforce, the joint safety power arrange by the Indonesian authorities to take care of separatist teams in Papua, after he was allowed to stroll free early Saturday, stated the taskforce spokesperson Bayu Suseno.
“We managed to pick him up in good health” within the Yuguru village of Nduga district, Suseno stated, including that Mehrtens was flown to the mining city Timika for additional well being and psychological examination.
Independence fighters led by Egianus Kogoya, a regional commander within the Free Papua Motion, stormed a single-engine aircraft on a small runway in Paro and kidnapped Mehrtens on Feb. 7, 2023.
Rebels have used violence to attempt to obtain independence amid the deteriorating safety scenario in Indonesia’s easternmost area of Papua, a former Dutch colony within the western a part of New Guinea that’s ethnically and culturally distinct from a lot of Indonesia.
Papua was integrated into Indonesia in 1969 below a United Nations-sponsored poll that was broadly seen as a sham.
Since then, a low-level insurgency has simmered within the area.
Battle spiked up to now yr, with dozens of rebels, safety forces and civilians killed.
Kogoya initially stated the rebels wouldn’t launch Mehrtens until Indonesia’s authorities permits Papua to turn out to be a sovereign nation.
Then on Tuesday, leaders of the West Papua Liberation Military, the armed wing of the Free Papua Motion often called TPNPB, issued a proposal for liberating Mehrtens that outlined phrases together with information media involvement in his launch.
Suseno stated that Mehrtens’ launch was the results of arduous work from a small activity power workforce that had been speaking with the separatists led by Kogoya by means of the native church and neighborhood leaders, in addition to youth figures.
“This is incredibly good news,” stated Suseno in a video assertion. “Effort to free the pilot by soft approach resulted in a hostage release without any casualties both from security forces, civilians or the pilot himself.”
New Zealand Overseas Minister Winston Peters confirmed Mehrtens’ launch after 592 days in captivity.
“We are pleased and relieved to confirm that Phillip Mehrtens is safe and well and has been able to talk with his family,” Peters stated in a written assertion Saturday. “This news must be an enormous relief for his friends and loved ones.”
Peters stated a variety of New Zealand authorities companies had been working with Indonesian authorities and others to safe the discharge for the previous 19 1/2 months. Officers have been additionally supporting Mehrtens’ household, Peters stated.
Many information shops confirmed “cooperation and restraint” in reporting the story, he added.
“The case has taken a toll on the Mehrtens family, who have asked for privacy,” Peters stated. “We ask media outlets to respect their wishes and therefore we have no further comment at this stage.”
New Zealand information shops reported throughout Mehrtens’ captivity that he was certainly one of plenty of expatriate pilots employed by Susi Air and in recent times lived in Bali together with his household.
Mehrtens, who was 37 when he was kidnapped, was initially from the town of Christchurch, New Zealand, and educated as a pilot in his residence nation, based on the information shops Stuff and the New Zealand Herald.
“We’ve got him free,” Peters informed reporters Saturday in Auckland, New Zealand. The event was an “enormous relief,” he stated.
Mehrtens was in Timika, Papua, Peters stated, however would journey to Jakarta “very very soon to be reunited with his family.”
Peters had not spoken to Mehrtens since his launch. The information was “one of the better stories I’ve had” in his 45 years as a lawmaker, the three-time overseas minister added.
He declined to offer particulars about how the pilot was freed. It was a “tricky” atmosphere and constructing belief had been essentially the most tough side of securing the New Zealander’s launch, Peters stated.
“It was quite nerve-wracking, holding our nerve and not getting too carried away, not doing anything that might imperil the chances,” he stated. “Because there was always a concern of ours that we might not succeed.”
Indonesia President Joko Widodo congratulated the Indonesian navy and police who helped free the pilot by prioritizing persuasion and security.
“This was through a very long negotiation process and our patience not to do it repressively,” Widodo stated.
In April 2023, armed separatists attacked Indonesian troops who have been deployed to rescue Mehrtens, killing a minimum of six troopers.
In August, gunmen stormed a helicopter and killed its New Zealand pilot, Glen Malcolm Conning, after it landed in Alama, a distant village within the Mimika district of Central Papua province.
Nobody has claimed duty for that assault, and the rebels and Indonesian authorities have blamed one another.
In 1996, the Free Papua Motion kidnapped 26 members of a World Wildlife Fund analysis mission in Mapenduma. Two kidnapped Indonesians have been killed by their abductors. The remaining hostages have been freed inside 5 months.
