Year Old OPM guerilla fighter arrives in Vanimo on an emergency mission

16 Year Old OPM guerilla fighter arrives in Vanimo on an emergency mission to seek medical attention as the humanitarian crisis in West Papua escalates 

The Vanimo General Hospital has met the measurement in its continued support and all its endeavors to discharge the responsibilities under the Geneva Convention regarding offering medical attention to casualties of the armed conflict in West Papua. 

Ottis Tabuni(shown in the photo), 16 years old and from Wamena was suspected to be an OPM guerilla arrived in Vanimo early on Wednesday morning this week by a motorized dinghy on an emergency mercy mission to receive treatment for bullet wounds he suffered when the continuing Indonesian military operation to flush out the OPM rebels in the Puncak Jaya area of the Highlands of West Papua began targeting innocent civilians. 

A spokesman for Free West Papua Campaign, PNG Chapter, based in Vanimo said:   

‘ He was wounded seriously when the Indonesian military shot at innocent women and children who fled their village as the military cracked down on OPM guerillas in the Puncak Jaya area of West Papua’. 

‘The military then brought the wounded to be treated at the Bayang Karya Military Hospital at Kota Raja in Jayapura, and the 18 year old was among them’

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‘While undergoing treatment for the past 2 to 3 months, the 18 year old boy escaped with the help of family members who organised for him to cross the border to receive medical treatment in Vanimo’.

According to family members the doctors at the Military Hospital at Kota Raja deliberately failed to remove bullet pellets lodged in the stomach and knees of the 18 year old boy in order to cause his death.

‘2 weeks ago one of the wounded died whilst receiving medical treatment’, and the 18 year old boy is also very weak and showing signs that his body is not responding to treatment’.

The Indonesian military pursued the boy when he escaped from the military hospital at but failed to stop him. It is understood the Indonesian Consulate in Vanimo is concerned about OPM guerillas receiving medical treatment at the Vanimo General Hospital across the border based on humanitarian grounds. In January this year the Vanimo General Hospital assisted to carry out an autopsy in order to identify and analyse the factors leading to the death of the late Danny Kogoya, an OPM Commander, who also had been receiving medical treatment at a military hospital in Jayapura before arriving in Vanimo under similar circumstances as the 18 year old boy. After his death his family requested for an autopsy which was later ordered by the Vanimo District Court.

It is understood an emergency surgical operation was done on Ottis Tabuni yesterday following the results of an x –ray scan on Wednesday. A surgical scissors was found in his stomach believed to be placed there by military doctors who did surgery on him in the military hospital in Jayapura(shown in the photo).

The Indonesian Consulate could not be reached for comment.