Banda Aceh – At least 12 people have been murdered or found dead over recent days in Indonesia Aceh province amid violence pitting separatist rebels against government forces, aid workers and residents said Thursday.
The body of an unidentified man, bearing gunshot wounds and torture marks, was found in Gunong Cut village in South Aceh on Thursday morning, a village resident told journalists. He said witnesses in the area had seen the victim's body being thrown out of a military truck.
In South Aceh's subdistrict of Blang Pidie, a bullet-ridden corpse was found on Wednesday, the resident added. Another three unidentified bodies – all bearing gunshot wounds – were separately evacuated by local Red Cross workers from three different areas in West Aceh district, one of the workers said Thursday. And in Bireuen district 18-year-old Zul Abdul Gani was found dead of gunshot wounds in a forested area on Wednesday, a resident in the area told journalists. Gani was believed to have been killed by Indonesian troops during a massive search operation for Free Aceh Movement (GAM) rebels on Monday, he told journalists on condition of anonymity.
Residents in Pidie district said five civilians were also killed Tuesday by troops during a similar search operation there. The victims, all peanut farmers, were shot when they tried to flee the troops entering their farm, they said.
On Tuesday, an elementary school principal, Zainal Abidin, was shot dead by unknown gunmen while he was sitting in a bus in Dewantara subdistrict.
Meanwhile, a local GAM commander in North Aceh, Teungku Amri bin Abdul Wahab claimed that his troops had killed three military personnel in an ambush on Thursday morning. The three were among six soldiers who had been threatening local villagers in the district's Jungka Gajah subdistrict, Wahab told AFP. The military in North Aceh could not immediately confirm the GAM claim.
Also in North Aceh on Wednesday, GAM deputy commander in Pase district, Sofyan Daud, claimed his men had shot dead eight government troops in an armed skirmish in Alue Bungkoh village in Matangkuli area.
However TNI military operations spokesman in North Aceh, Lieutenant Colonel Firdaus, told journalists the claim was not true.
Jakarta in April branded GAM an outlaw movement and sent more than 1,000 troops to Aceh, leading to in a sharp escalation in violence. The government and the GAM are scheduled to resume peace talks in Geneva next month. Previous talks, facilitated by the Swiss-based Henri Dunant Center, broke off last year after a series of failed truces.
The oil-rich province on the northern tip of Sumatra island has seen rising separatism since the mid 1970s. More than 800 people have been killed in Aceh this year alone.