A New Zealander has been shot dead at an office of a mining company in West Papua.
Indonesian police said Graeme Thomas Weal, a 57-year-old employee of miner PT Freeport Indonesia, was among several people shot in an attack by armed criminals.
The attack took place yesterday afternoon at a Freeport office in Timika in Indonesian-administered Papua province.
At least two other people sustained injuries in the attack and had been hospitalised.
Police said that together with Indonesian military, they were hunting for the shooters who had fled into the jungle after the attack.
The attack comes in the same regency where the West Papua Liberation Army had claimed responsibility for recent deadly attacks on police and military connected to the lucrative mine operations.
The Liberation Army, a disparate force of guerilla fighters, had declared war on the Indonesian state, with whose security forces hostilities have escalated since late 2018 in Papua's central highlands region.
The United Liberation Movement for West Papua, the non-military arm of the Papuan independence movement, had cautioned against pointing the blame at the Liberation Army, who Indonesian authorities often referred to as an armed criminal group.
"The ULMWP urges the international media to treat claims about the shooting with extreme caution," the Movement's chairman Benny Wenda said.
"There is a long history of the Indonesian military carrying out killings, posing as West Papuans, in order to justify further militarisation, security deals and crackdowns."
