MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 24th September, 2019) The death toll from ethnic riots in Indonesia's easternmost Papua province rose from 27 to 32 on Tuesday after more bodies were found, police sources told media.
Violent protests swept the Papua town of Wamena and a neighborhood in the region's main city of Jayapura on Monday amid rumors that a teacher used racial slurs against ethnic Papuan students.
"The total of the casualty found in Wamena became 28 with four others in Waena," Senior Commissioner Ahmad Mustofa Kamal was cited as saying by China's Xinhua news agency.
Crowds in Wamena reportedly set fire to government buildings, businesses and homes following what police said was a hoax circulated on social media.
Papua has seen numerous ethnic protests after it was seized by Indonesia in 1969. It was rocked by weeks of unrest in August after Papuan students in the city of Surabaya on Java Island were pepper-sprayed by police on a university campus for allegedly trampling the national flag.
