At the top of a green hill, several houses on stilts stand on a field whose soil is red. All the houses are made of rough tree wood and the roof is made of sago leaves.
By
AGUSTINUS WIBOWO
·5 minutes read
AGUSTINUS WIBOWO
Walking across the bridge from mossy tree trunks on the way to Digo, Papua New Guinea.
I heard a lot about Digo, a small camp inhabited by OPM refugees located in the middle of the forest, right on the border between the Republic of Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. The refugees were stranded there because they were expelled by the PNG villagers who originally accommodated them.
To reach Digo, I departed from Tarakbits, a PNG village about 10 kilometers from the Indonesian border. I was accompanied by Felix Ahole. He is only about 140 centimeters high. The Yomgom people living in Tarakbits are generally short in stature.
"I\'m actually also Indonesian," said Papa Felix in English. “I was born there. Our uncle is the commander of a local army (Koramil) of Boven Digoel regency.”
We had to cross three big rivers and dozens of small rivers. The first big river is waist-deep, and the second one is chest-deep.
At noon, we arrived at a plateau at the top of a hill. Papa Felix said it was the boundary between Indonesia and PNG. On the map, the boundary line looks straight, visible and absolute. But in reality it\'s in the middle of the jungle and wilderness, almost unmarked.
If Digo is on the other side of this line, it means that the OPM refugee camp is within Indonesian territory. This is weird because they fled to PNG to escape from Indonesia.
AGUSTINUS WIBOWO
Trip to Digo, Papua New Guinea
The third big river is the hardest obstacle. We descended a very steep cliff 5 meters high, then down a waist-deep wide river, where the water was clear but the rocks at the bottom were full of moss. After that we had to cross a mossy tree trunk that served as a bridge to the next steep hill.
After that, there were four more small rivers, as well as a sea of soft and sticky sago swamps. As the sun dimmed, and we had just descended a steep hill, Felix pointed at a hut on the next hilltop. "Digo. We have arrived," he said.
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At the top of a green hill, several houses on stilts stand on a field whose soil is red. All the houses are made of rough tree wood and the roof is made of sago leaves.
Children were running in the field. They were all thin and their abdomen bloated due to lack of nutrition. Many of the boys had severe skin diseases.
We were greeted by Filipus Marapyap. The skinny man with the thick mustache led me into his stilt house, which was almost without house utensils. The wooden slats and sago tree bark used for the floor of the house were too little, so there were a lot of holes here and there. On these slats they sleep, without mattresses and without carpet.
Filipus was born in 1975, making him among the oldest people in this camp. In 1984, he joined his parents in a large wave of Papuan refugees to PNG. His native village is Kerengo on the Indonesian side, and he belongs to the Are-speaking Wengwap tribe.
“At that time we were afraid of the Indonesian army. They have guns. So we retreated [migrated] here,” said Filipus.
AGUSTINUS WIBOWO
House in Digo
Their migration was initially welcomed by PNG people, who considered them their fellow Melanesians. But after only three years of their stay in Tarakbits, disputes with the natives heated up over land and food. Finally they withdrew again to the west, arriving at the middle of this forest, without realizing that they had returned to Indonesian territory, about 5 kilometers from the border line.
Even though it is already on Indonesian soil, the easiest access from Digo is to PNG. But this isn\'t too easy either. They had to walk for one day to reach Tarakbits, and from there it was another day\'s walk to Ningerum, where the nearest market was located. That\'s where they could sell the pigs and make money. The journey was too long and dangerous, so they couldn\'t do it often.
That is why the Digo people have no money. They cannot afford sugar, salt, tea or coffee. They also never bathe with soap. Worse yet, their river is polluted by mining waste, so they cannot eat fish. The only food they have is raw bananas, sago, taro and yams, which they can take directly from nature.
Access to health services is very difficult, so many of the people at this camp die at a young age. Filipus himself once lost a 4-month-old child to malaria.
It is rare for a Digo person to live past the age of 40. Almost all of Digo\'s residents were born after the great refugee migration in 1984, so they no longer know the history of their migration. Now they can only wonder: Why are there no schools or roads in the area? Why is the PNG government not building anything?
“Are you PNG or Indonesian people?” I asked.
“We are in the middle, so we are free to decide. If Indonesia builds [infrastructure] project up to here, we will join Indonesia. If PNG does, we will join PNG," Filipus replied.
Hearing that, Papa Felix who accompanied me said, “It\'s like a wife with two husbands!”
