REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, KUPANG -- Two residents of East Nusa Tenggara are among the dead and missing victims of the brutal killings by armed Papuan rebels. However, the provincial government still awaits confirmation on their fate, a top official stated.

"We are still waiting for accurate information on whether our two people also became victims of the shootings and killings," East Nusa Tenggara Deputy Governor Josef Nae Soi informed Antara here on Friday.

The two victims were Imanuel Beli Naektias Bano, a resident of Timor Tengah Selatan District, and Ayub Maudeng, a resident of Kupang, the capital city of East Nusa Tenggara Province.

Bano died, and his corpse is still kept at the Timika Hospital, while Maudeng fled the site of brutality, but his whereabouts remain unknown. They are identified as the workers of PT Istaka Karya and were involved in the Trans-Papua road construction project.

Deputy Governor Soi affirmed that if the need arises, he would contact the Papuan governor to help evacuate the two residents of East Nusa Tenggara Province.

In another development, the Indonesian security forces have identified the Trans Papua road construction workers brutally killed by a group of armed Papuan rebels in Nduga District, Papua Province, on Dec 2, a military officer stated.

The police and military units, deployed to the site of the murders, continued to search for the whereabouts of the workers to identify those found dead or alive, Lt. Col. Dax Sianturi, the spokesman of XVII/Cendrawasih regional military command, noted.

Sianturi said, as of Friday at 5 a.m. local time, the Indonesian military and police personnel have found 16 corpses of workers in the sub-districts of Yigi and Mbua, Nduga District.

Nine of the bodies had been identified and moved to Timika, Mimika District, on Thursday. According to Sianturi, the security personnel continued to update information on the victims, including the workers of PT Istaka Karya. On the day the shootings occurred, 28 workers of PT Istaka Karya were on the ground.

Seven of them survived the brutal killings. Nine others had been confirmed dead, while seven workers, who also died, could not as yet be identified, while five other workers were still missing, he noted.

The armed rebels also killed a soldier named Handoko and injured two other security personnel Sugeng and Wahyu, he added.

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