Senior West Papuan figures have slammed the most recent Indonesian attacks on the occupied Indigenous territory of Western New Guinea.
Inside the space of approximately 48 hours, a West Papuan independence leader and the region's most prominent Christian leader have spoken out over a series of deaths and injuries among ethnic Papuans that include the elderly, a pregnant woman, and children.
Indonesian police were first found to have killed five Papuans on the eve of Good Friday church services for Easter while two others were found seriously wounded before Indonesia's military later killed 12 more civilians in a West Papuan refugee camp, all throughout April.
The authoritarian crackdown continued where police fired at Papuan students, wounding seven teenagers that were displaying the territory's Morning Star flag following their high school graduation celebrations.
The Indonesian government have said the deaths are being investigated against a backdrop of further pressure applied from its National Commission for Human Rights.
United Liberation Movement for West Papua chairman Benny Wenda has called for Indonesia's associate membership of the Melanesian Spearhead Group be revoked immediately, and that it no longer be a dialogue partner at the Pacific Islands Forum.
Mr Wenda condemned the most recent "colonial brutality" from Indonesia's national armed forces in both the city of Timika and in the Intan Jaya province soldiers were accused of planting bombs on the bodies of deceased West Papuans that the military had killed.
Families collecting their dead kin, including respected Papuan Elders, were said to be seriously injured when the attached bombs exploded.
Neither police nor the army informed the family the body were "booby-trapped", Mr Wenda alleged in an appeal for solidarity from West Papua's Melanesian brothers that includes Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands.
"Indonesia has a history of hiding explosives on murdered Papuans: the TNI (Tentara Nasional Indonesia - the Indonesian National Armed Forces) used this method after killing (West Papuan woman) Hetina Mirpin in June 2025 in an attempt to injure her family upon them discovering her shallow grave," he said.
"Pacific leaders must ask themselves how much bloodshed they are prepared to tolerate? How many Papuans must die? How much humiliation must our Elders suffer?
"Over the past 15 years, I have raised our issue in countless meetings with Pacific leaders, but the only change has been for the worse.
"No element of West Papuan life is safe from Indonesian militarisation. Massacres occur on a weekly basis, our people are displaced every day, our churches and our schools are forcibly emptied and then occupied as military posts.
"Indonesia's suppression of the West Papuan voice is even spreading to Java and Sumatra."
Amid the ongoing 63-year Indonesian occupation of the territory, Komnas HAM - the human rights commission referred as Komisi Nasional Hak Asasi Manusia - has identified 26 cases of violence in West Papua this year so far that has contributed to at least 37 reported deaths.
The alarming rate appears on track with the 97 separate violent incidents and armed conflicts throughout 2025, but on the increase from the 64 deaths during that entire 12-month period.
Indonesia's Foreign Affairs Ministry has declined to discuss the issue further to the media other than to confirm investigations are underway.
However, the West Papuan head of the human rights and justice department of the Evangelical Church of Indonesia, Pastor Jimi Koirewa, has come out to publicly stand against what he called was a disturbing pattern to these recent attacks.
"The children are being killed; the women are being killed," he said.
"That is a part of a genocide because the women will give birth to babies, the kids, the children, the youth - they are the future of Papua and killing them is part of a genocide.
"They're wiping us out - there will be no more people there standing in Papua.
"The old people will die gradually."
Pastor Koirewa said police rarely investigate the violence behind the incidents, leaving Papuan communities deeply mistrustful of the justice system.
He added the goodwill of the church has "no influence in Jakarta at all".
"There's so much military deployment coming into West Papua, and the reason they said is they want to get rid of rebels, OPM (Oragnisi Papua Merdeka - the Free Papua Movement) - that is what they call rebels," Pastor Koirewa said.
"They said that they want to get rid of the OPM just so that development can happen (in West Papua), so the government can come and build the land.
"But when they come in, they are not shooting the combatant, the OPM, but they are shooting at the people."
