Losses Due To The Brutality Of The Armed Criminal Group In Beoga District Of Papua Reach IDR 7.2 Billion, Children In Rural Area Are Threatened To Drop Out Of School

Schools burned by KKB Papua (Photo: ANTARA)

PAPUA - Armed Criminal Groups (KKB) in Papua are getting brutal. They burned two schools located in Julukoma Village, Beoga District, Puncak Regency.

Head of the Regional Education, Library, and Archives Office of Papua Province Christian Sohilait said that the losses for the incident were not small. To build one room alone needs a budget of around IDR 600 million.

The size of the development budget is due to access to a heavy location. With 2 schools burned the total losses touched IDR 7.2 billion.

"The schoolroom is made of wood. There are 12 rooms burned meaning the loss is already IDR 7.2 billion", Christian said in Jayapura reported from Antara, Tuesday, April 13.

The first action took place on Thursday, April 8, and resulted in three rooms of Beoga State High School I being burned down. The second was conducted on Sunday, April 11, the night that caused nine rooms at Beoga State Junior High School I to catch fire.

"We are confused as to why the armed criminal group carried out the burning because it could be fatal because the children in Beoga, which is a rural area, could not get a good education", he said.

He added that in mountainous areas the main problem is not the cost, but the difficulty of mobilizing building materials which is much more difficult because everything has to be transported by airplane.

"We hope that the security forces can immediately crackdown on the perpetrators of the murder of two teachers and also the perpetrators of the burning of school facilities in Beoga", he said.