New Zealand pilot kidnapped by Indonesian separatists more than a year and a half ago has been released

September 21 () –

New Zealand authorities have confirmed that their citizen Phillip Mehrtens, a pilot held hostage for 19 months by Indonesian separatist rebels in Papua province, has finally been released and is “now safe.”

“We are pleased and relieved to confirm that Phillip Mehrtens is safe and well and has been able to speak to his family. This news must be a huge relief to his friends and loved ones,” said Foreign Secretary Winston Peters.

According to a statement issued by the New Zealand government, Mehrtens was kidnapped while working as a pilot at a remote airstrip in the city of Paro, located in Papua, at the beginning of February last year.

Peters stressed that throughout this time, the New Zealand government has tried to negotiate with the kidnappers, the West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB), the armed wing of the Free Papua Movement.

The group, which has been waging a decades-long insurgency against the Indonesian government, has always made the release of the New Zealand pilot conditional on Papua’s independence. Mehrtens’ release marks a positive development in the separatist conflict.

The separatists had released a video last February, one year after the kidnapping, in which Mehrtens said he was doing well and acknowledged that his captors treated him well. “I’m trying to be positive,” the pilot said.

Apart from this video and a few photographs published by the pro-independence group, there has been no further information on the New Zealand pilot’s health for more than a year and a half. The government of his country has always insisted on his release.

Indonesian security forces have been accused in recent decades of abuses in Papua, a region that was incorporated into the country in a U.N.-administered vote that rights groups and independence activists have called a sham.