(CNN) – New Zealand pilot Phillip Mehrtens was released after more than 18 months of captivity in the conflictive Indonesian region of Papua, according to a statement from Wellington’s Foreign Minister made public this Saturday.
“We are pleased and relieved to confirm that Phillip Mehrtens is safe and healthy and has been able to speak to his family. This news should come as a huge relief to his friends and loved ones,” Winston Peters said in a statement.
An armed faction of the West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB) kidnapped Mehrtens on February 7, 2023, after a small commercial plane landed in the remote, mountainous area of Nduga.
By holding Mehrtens, his captors hoped to pressure New Zealand into pressuring Indonesia to allow Papua to secede from Indonesia, a seemingly impossible demand.
Peters declared that his ministry, with staff in both Indonesia and Wellington, had led a “sustained whole-of-government effort to secure the release of Phillip Mehrtens”.
He added that the family had asked for privacy and said no further comment would be made at this time.
The armed independence fighters are led by Egianus Kogeya, a member of the TPNPB, the armed wing of the Free Papua Movement. At first they threatened to kill the New Zealander if his country did not meet their demand for secession.
The TPNPB is considered a terrorist organization by the Indonesian government and has taken hostages in the past to further its cause.
Papua, a resource-rich former Dutch colony, was formally absorbed by Indonesia following a controversial referendum in 1969. Advocates for Papuan independence say the vote was neither free nor fair.
Since his capture last year, proof of life videos show Mehrtens becoming thinner and more disheveled. He almost always appears surrounded by combatants with guns, bows and arrows.
