A New Zealand pilot is freed after 19 months in rebel captivity in Indonesia’s Papua region

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — A New Zealand pilot held hostage for more than a year in the restive Papua region of Indonesia was freed Saturday by separatist rebels.

Phillip Mark Mehrtens, a 38-year-old pilot from Christchurch, was working for Indonesian aviation company Susi Air when he was abducted by rebels from a remote airport on Feb. 7, 2023.

“Today I finally got out. I am so happy to be back home with my family soon,” Mehrtens told reporters in a news conference in the mining town of Timika. “Thank you to everyone who helped me get out safety and healthy.”

Television news earlier showed an emaciated, long-haired Mehrtens, wearing a dark-green shirt and black shorts, sitting in a room surrounded by police officers and local officials. He sobbed while talking to his family via video and an officer tried to calm him down by patting his back. He was later flown to Jakarta to be reunited with his family.

Rebels have used violence to try to achieve independence as the security situation deteriorates in Indonesia’s easternmost region of Papua, a former Dutch colony in the western part of New Guinea that is ethnically and culturally distinct from much of Indonesia.

Papua was incorporated into Indonesia in 1969 under a United Nations-sponsored ballot that was widely seen as a sham. Since then, a low-level insurgency has simmered. The conflict spiked in the past year, with dozens of rebels, security forces and civilians killed.

Egianus Kogoya, a regional commander in the Free Papua Movement, initially said the rebels would not release Mehrtens unless Indonesia’s government allows Papua to become a sovereign country.

Then on Tuesday, leaders of the West Papua Liberation Army, the armed wing of the Free Papua Movement known as