Church: Cholera death toll rises to 172 in Papua

Jul 30, 2008, 10:33 GMT

Jakarta (dap) - The death toll from a cholera outbreak in Indonesia's easternmost province has risen to 172 Wednesday as reports of violence against migrants accused of spreading the disease are being reported, according to local church leaders.

Local church workers said that at least 172 residents from 19 villages in two different sub-districts on Papua's Kamuu valley have died from severe diarrhoea and vomiting believed to be caused by cholera since early April, the state-run Antara news agency reported.

Benny Giay of the Synod of Protestant Churches Denominations, flanked by other local church leaders, expressed deep concern about the tragedy and blamed local authorities of ignoring the issue and not implementing prevention measures against the disease.

The long delay in government action provoked indigenous Papuans to attack newcomers to the region last week as they believed the disease had been intentionally spread by them to decimate the indigenous population.

'Indigenous people vandalized houses belonging to the new migrants based on the assumption the migrants were to blame for the outbreak,' Antara quoted Giay as saying at a press conference on Wednesday.

He said local Papuans were suspicious the government was deliberately neglecting the outbreak.

Brother Budi Hermawan of the Jayapura Archdiocese said earlier that the churches have deployed medical teams to affected villages but could not cover all of the large, remote area due to insufficient personnel and drugs.

The source of the outbreak, which began in April, was still unknown, but the disease appeared to be spreading via drinking water from a river and products in markets in the highland region.

Local health authorities and the provincial government were briefed on the crisis in May but failed to act, leading to a more severe outbreak, Hermawan said.

'The residents' condition in the affected areas was very desperate because there are still no efforts being made by local government authorities,' Hermawan was quoted as saying.

Giay and Hermawan did not explain why both of them were just disclosing the attacks days after the incident.

Papua province was incorporated into Indonesia in 1963 and Papuans voted for Indonesian rule on the former Dutch colony on the western half of New Guinea six years later in a UN plebiscite that was widely seen as a sham.

Indonesia in 2003 granted Papuans special autonomy for the province, but it remains the least developed in the country despite being home to rich natural resources worth billions of dollars.