Captured pilot Phillip Mehrtens urges Indonesia to stop bombing rebel Papua territory

The New Zealand pilot captured by Papuan rebels in February has urged Indonesia to stop bombing the remote highlands region where he is being held.

Phillip Mehrtens flanked by his Papuan captors.

The New Zealand pilot captured by Papuan rebels in February has urged Indonesia to stop bombing the remote highlands region where he is being held, in a new video released by his kidnappers on Wednesday.

In the latest video, the third released by his rebel captors from the separatist West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB), Phillip Mehrtens says he is concerned for his own safety and that of the Papuans with whom he is living as a result of recent Indonesian military air strikes.

“Indonesia has been dropping bombs in the area for the last week and please there’s no need. It’s dangerous for me and everybody here. Thank you for your support,” the 37-year-old father says in Indonesian and in English as he is flanked between two TPNPB fighters in a scrubby setting.

The Indonesian military raised the status of its operation to rescue Mr Mehrtens to “combat alert” earlier this month after a group of 36 soldiers was ambushed by TPNPB fighters in the mountainous Nduga area where he is being held. The TPNPB claimed it killed 13 police and soldiers in the strike, while the military has confirmed only four deaths and says five others were wounded.

Since the attack, the TPNPB has accused the military of staging air strikes in the area of the ambush and of hitting neighbouring villages.

Mr Mehrtens has been held hostage by the group since February 7 when he was ambushed after landing a commercial Susi Air passenger flight on a remote airstrip in Nduga, the centre of fighting between the state and rebel fighters in the Papuan highlands.

The plane was torched and Mr Mehrtens was taken into the dense mountainous region which is the heartland of the rebel group.

The separatists had originally said Mr Mehrtens would not be released until the Indonesian government acknowledged Papua’s independence, the goal of local independence fighters since the 1960s, but earlier this month they appeared to drop that demand.

They are still insisting, however, that the New Zealander will not be released until both the Indonesian and NZ governments come to the negotiating table.

Indonesian authorities have raised concerns over the health of Mr Mehrtens, an asthma sufferer who is believed to have been kept on the move by his captors to avoid detection.

In the latest video, Mr Mehrtens addresses those concerns, insisting he is healthy.

“It’s almost three months since OPM (Free Papua Movement) kidnapped me from Paro,” he says.

“As you can see I’m still alive, I’m healthy, I’ve been eating well, drinking. I live with the people here. We travel together as required. We live together, we sit ­together.”