187 Came Home

From Hollandia, NNG, in August came a report of how 187 Papuans “came back” to Dutch territory from Indonesia.

IT happened in April when the people of the small village of Torobi, on Koflau Island, which is in NNG close to the western sea border which divides NNG from Dutch-hating Indonesia, were astonished to see a great number of outrigger canoes heading for shore. All were loaded with people,

plus pigs, goats and other live stock. Soon. 187 men, women and children were walking up the beach.

They were led by a village preacher Willem Wanma, who re ported the fugitives had taken four days to make the crossing from Indonesian territory and on the way a baby had been born, Wanma told how his people had always been seagoing people who had regularly visited what were now the Indonesian islands.

In about 1936, people from the Dutch islands of Numfoor and Biak had settled what is now Indonesia’s island of Obi. where they had worked with a Dutch firm. When war broke out and there was no work, the migrants moved to the small island of Bisa, and around 1945 an entire village of people from Biak and Numfoor had estab lished itself there. The men mixed with the local Indonesian, but Christian, population.

Wanma reported that conditions had deteriorated in the last few years and Chinese shop owners were ordered by the Indonesian Government to close their shops and go to the big cities. Then the New Guinea immigrants made their plans to return home. Officially they were not allowed to go so they had packed up one night and gone.

The NNG Government has assisted the 187 fugitives with food and supplies and has returned them to villages in the Geelvink Bay area, where the elders originated.

These are some of more than 20 outrigger canoes, with 187 people aboard, who escaped over "the Western border".

This young mother was one of the fugitives.

Obviously she has some Indonesian blood in her now.