Separatist rebels in Indonesia's Papua province have killed a government soldier during a gunfight, the military says.
The fighting broke out after insurgents opened fire on soldiers guarding Kiwi airport in Kiwirok district, provincial military spokesman Colonel Reza Nur Patria said on Tuesday.
Kiwirok was the scene of arson attacks by rebels on a school and health clinic on September 13. A nurse died after jumping into a ravine to escape the attack, police said.
The West Papua National Liberation Army claimed responsibility for the attack on the public facilities, saying they were waging "a revolutionary war on the colonialist government of Indonesia."
The Indonesian government designated separatist insurgents as terrorists in April, after an army general was killed in a rebel ambush.
The killing prompted President Joko Widodo to order a crackdown on the separatist group.
Indigenous people have fought for nationhood in the Papua region, which consists of the Papua and West Papua provinces, since the 1960s.
But deadly clashes between rebels and government security forces have intensified in the past few years.
Military and police personnel have been accused of human rights abuses in Papua, a mainly Melanesian region that was incorporated into Indonesia in a UN-administered ballot that rights groups and pro-independence activists criticised as a sham.
Australian Associated Press
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - A shootout ensued between TNI soldiers and an armed criminals group in Kiwirok, Bintang Mountains, Papua, on Tuesday, September 21. One TNI soldier was killed in the incident.
"The gun contact took place at Kiwi Airport, Kiwirok District, Bintang Mountains Regency, when the TNI was securing the airport for evacuating the body of the late Gabriela Meilani, a health worker," Cendrawasih Military Command spokesperson Lt. Col. Arms. Reza Nur Patria said on Tuesday, September 21.
The gunfight took place around 06:40 local time. Reza said that the gun battle was with the Ngalum Kupel group.
During the incident, 2nd Private Ida Bagus from Battalion 403 was killed.
This shootout broke out after a week ago the armed group attacked a health center (puskesmas) and public facilities in Kiwirok. At that time, a health worker at the Kiwirok Puskesmas, Gabriela Meilani, was killed. Nine other health workers were also injured.
Read: Shootout Breaks Out in Papua's Kiwirok; One Soldier Wounded
Egi Adyatama
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