Gunmen kill New Zealand helicopter pilot in attack in Indonesia’s Papua region

Gunmen stormed a helicopter and killed its New Zealand pilot shortly after it landed in Indonesia’s restive Papua region, police have said.

The gunmen released two health workers and two children the helicopter was carrying on Monday.

Glen Malcolm Conning was a pilot for Indonesian aviation company PT Intan Angkasa Air Service.

He was shot dead by gunmen allegedly with the West Papua Liberation Army, the armed wing of the Free Papua Movement, after landing in Alama, a remote village in the Mimika district of Central Papua province, said Faizal Ramadhani, a National Police member who heads the joint security peace force in Papua.

The gunmen released the Indigenous Papuan passengers and set fire to the aircraft, he said.

“All passengers were safe because they were local residents of Alama village,” said Mr Ramadhani, adding that the village is in a mountainous district that can be reached only by helicopter.

A joint security force was deployed to search for the attackers, who ran into the dense jungle.

New Zealand’s Foreign Ministry confirmed late on Tuesday that Mr Conning had been killed.

Consular officials in Jakarta were working with authorities to “understand more about the circumstances” surrounding the helicopter pilot’s death, the ministry said in a statement.

West Papua Liberation Army spokesman Sebby Sambom told The Associated Press he had not received any reports from fighters on the ground about the killing.

“But, if that happens, it was his own fault for entering our forbidden territory,” Sambom said.

“We have released warnings several times that the area is under our restricted zone, an armed conflict area that is prohibited for any civilian aircraft to land.”

Sambom called on Indonesian authorities to stop all development in Papua until the government is willing to negotiate with the rebels, and “if anyone disobeys, they must bear the risk themselves.”

Conflicts between Indigenous Papuans and Indonesian security forces are common in the impoverished Papua region, a former Dutch colony in the western part of New Guinea that is ethnically and culturally distinct from much of Indonesia.

Conflict has spiked in the past year, with dozens of rebels, security forces and civilians killed.

Monday’s killing was the latest violence against New Zealand nationals in the Papua region.

In February 2023, Egianus Kogoya, a regional commander in the Free Papua Movement, abducted Philip Mark Mehrtens, a pilot from Christchurch who was working for Indonesian aviation company Susi Air.

Kogoya and his troops stormed a single-engine plane shortly after it landed on a small runway in a mountainous village.

Planning to use the pilot to negotiate, Kogoya has said they will not release Mr Mehrtens unless Indonesia frees Papua as a sovereign country.

In 2020, seven employees of PT Freeport Indonesia, including a New Zealand miner, Graeme Thomas Wall from Ngaruawahia, were attacked by gunmen in a parking area in Tembagapura, a mining town.

Mr Wall was shot in his chest and died.

Papua was incorporated into Indonesia in 1969 after a UN-sponsored ballot that was widely seen as a sham.

Since then, a low-level insurgency has simmered in the mineral-rich region, which is divided into six provinces.

Flying is the only practical way to access many areas in the mountainous easternmost provinces of Papua and West Papua.