Separatists in Indonesia’s restive eastern Papua region have shot and killed eight gold miners who, they claimed, were undercover members of the security forces, the military said on Thursday.
“The miners were attacked while working in the far-flung district of Yahukimo, Papua Pegunungan province, on Wednesday,” military spokesman Wirya Arthadiguna said in a statement.
He said, “The victims were civilians panning for gold in the area."
The West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB), however, said that it had carried out a successful ‘cleansing operation’ against soldiers/police officers disguised as illegal gold miners.
TPNPB spokesman Sebby Sambom said, “the operation was in retaliation for the deaths of two of its members at the hands of the military in Yahukimo last week.”
Wirya said that the military has deployed teams to track down the shooters and evacuate the victims’ bodies by helicopter.
“Security in the area will be stepped up,” he added.
Papua, which shares an island with Papua New Guinea, is a former Dutch colony that declared independence in 1961.
Indonesia took control two years later, followed by a 1969 referendum in which 1,000 Papuans out of a population of about 800,000 voted in favour of integration.
Papuan independence activists regularly criticise the vote and call for fresh polls, but Jakarta claims that the United Nations supports its sovereignty over Papua.
In 2025, separatists killed at least 11 gold miners in Yahukimo, according to the military, in another case in which the targets were accused of being undercover soldiers.
In 2022, 10 civilians were shot dead in a rebel ambush, and eight telecoms workers were killed in another attack in what the guerrillas said was a war zone.
Indonesia’s National Commission on Human Rights is investigating the killing of more than a dozen civilians, including women and children, in a military operation in the Papuan village of Kembru in April.
The military claimed it had taken out rebel fighters.
