JAYAPURA, Indonesia—Ten people were killed and more than 20 others wounded in a riot in Indonesia’s Papua Province, police said on Friday.
The riots began Thursday afternoon in Wamena town in the Jayawijaya district of Papua, the country’s easternmost Province, amid reports of a child kidnapping.
Local police who had responded to a report about the kidnapping—which police later said was a hoax—were attacked with rocks and arrows. Officers fired warning shots, hoping the people would disperse, Papua police spokesperson Ignatius Benny Ady Prabowo said in a written statement Friday.
“The masses, who were increasingly anarchic, did not want to listen to the appeals from the officers. They did not want to disperse when they were given warning shots and even attacked the officers with arrows,” Prabowo said….