JAKARTA (Reuters) – Indonesian authorities will this week send aid to remote areas of the eastern Papua region, where thousands are facing hunger brought on by drought, the chief of the country’s disaster agency said on Monday.
Six have died since June in the mountainous Puncak district in Central Papua due to a snowy season that was immediately followed by a prolonged dry season that hit crops. Access to the region is hampered by difficult terrain and threats posed by armed separatists, authorities said.
Suharyanto, chief of Indonesia’s disaster mitigation agency (BNPB), said in a statement authorities would send food, milk and other aid to the region on Wednesday. The area is only accessible via two-wheeled vehicles and helicopters.
Earlier on Monday, he told a news conference that Puncak residents suffer from drought every year “but this year it’s more extreme”, to the extent that some have died of hunger.
He told Reuters that four died of hunger last year in the same region, adding the drought was caused by climate change.
President Joko Widodo on Monday instructed authorities to resolve the problem in Central Papua, adding “that is a specific area that during snow season … no crops can grow.”
Puncak is near the highest mountain in Indonesia, one of the rare spots where snow falls in the country.
Though rich in gold, copper, timber and natural gas, Papua is one of the poorest, most underdeveloped in Indonesia.
A low level, but increasingly deadly, battle for independence has been waged in resource-rich Papua ever since it was controversially brought under Indonesian control in a vote overseen by the United Nations in 1969.
Indonesia is expecting a severe dry season from the impact of the El Nino weather pattern this year, threatening harvests and raising the risk of forest fires, the country’s weather agency said last month.
(Reporting by Ananda Teresia and Stanley Widianto; Editing by Mark Potter)
