Two employees of the Papua Regional Development Bank (BPD Papua) have been evacuated from Kiwirok Sub-district in Pegunungan Bintang District to Sentani, the capital of Jayapura District, a bank official has said.
The workers left the sub-district on an AMA aircraft on Monday morning after the BPD Papua office was torched by several Papuan separatist terrorists, BPD Papua’s operations director, Isak Wopari, stated.
Another employee happened to be in Oksibil, the capital of Pegunungan Bintang District, when several separatists torched public facilities, including BPD Papua, he informed.
The BPD Papua-Kiwirok office had been torched a few years ago by miscreants, but the Pegunungan Bintang District government had helped to get it rebuilt, he said. On Monday (September 13, 2021), fire again ravaged the bank office building, he noted.
Due to the incident, the BPD Papua office in Kiwirok has been closed until further notice because all remaining bank employees have been moved to Oksibil, Wopari added.
Meanwhile, Commanding Officer of the 1715 Yahukimo District Military Command, Lt.Col.Christian Irreuw, has held members of the Lamek Tablo-led armed group responsible for the acts of terror in Kiwirok.
The separatist terrorists not only torched several public facilities and houses in Kiwirok Sub-district, but were also involved in a gun fight with several Indonesian security personnel, he noted.
Before mounting acts of terror on Kiwirok, the separatist terrorists recently set some backhoes of state-owned construction company PT Wijaya Karya (WIKA) on fire, he added.
Irreuw said they torched the backhoes, used for the Oksibil-Towe Hitam road construction project, to avenge the arrests of two members who had tried to smuggle five firearms into Papua from PNG on September 2, 2021.
Members of the Lamek Tablo-led armed Papuan separatist terrorist group might have headed to Batom sub-district in Pegunungan Bintang District, Irreuw said.
“Therefore, I have ordered all personnel, especially those responsible for securing the Indonesia-Papua New Guinea land border to stay alert,” he added.
Kiwirok and Batom are among the sub-districts of Pegunungan Bintang District which are located near the Indonesia-PNG land border.
Source: Antara News