OPM Executes Teacher in Dekai, Threatens Builders, Drivers and Food Vendors

An execution at a shop-house in Dekai

Sunday evening, October 11, 2026, around 18.00 local time, at a shop-house in Dekai, the capital of Yahukimo regency in Highland Papua. A teacher named Arifudin was shot dead. The next day, Monday, October 12, 2026, the armed group calling itself TPNPB Kodap XVI Yahukimo claimed full responsibility.

The claim came from the TPNPB-OPM spokesman, Sebby Sambom, in a press release from the group's central command. According to the release, the official report came from the operations commander of TPNPB Kodap XVI Yahukimo, Major Kopitua Heluka.

The reason given for killing a teacher is written in the release: Arifudin was accused of being an Indonesian military intelligence agent holding the rank of corporal while working as a teacher. He was also said to have regularly invited colleagues to stay overnight at the teachers' housing of SDN 1 Dekai on Jalan Seredala, which the group claims had been turned into a military post.

The killing was described as retaliation for the death of Koteka Homilek Heluka. No official statement from the military, the police or the Yahukimo regency government confirms the victim's identity or the claim that he was a service member. As of this writing, the only source naming the victim and stating his profession is the statement by the group that says it killed him.

The threats, in their own words

What makes this statement different from an ordinary claim is the list that follows. The group did not only admit to a killing; it announced who else it will kill. Builders, motorcycle-taxi riders, taxi drivers, meatball-soup sellers, kiosk owners and other migrants were named as people it will execute if they are considered agents of Indonesian military intelligence.

The group also threatened to keep hunting soldiers serving as teachers in Yahukimo, stated its rejection of all infrastructure development in Papua and its readiness to thwart it, and challenged security forces to chase them to Jalan Gunung in Dekai.

And one sentence explains the logic behind all of it: the group says the shootings and killings will stop only if the Indonesian government agrees to talks at an international negotiating table supervised by the United Nations. It also urged President Prabowo Subianto, Defence Minister Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin and Armed Forces chief Agus Subiyanto to acknowledge its dead members and stop hiding their identities.

That list should be read for what it is: a programme, not an emotion. Teachers, motorcycle-taxi riders and meatball-soup sellers are not being treated as soldiers. They are treated as part of the state that must be fought, and therefore may be killed.

The same pattern, in the same regency

This is not the first statement from the same commander. In August 2026, Major Kopitua Heluka claimed through Jubi that his group had shot dead four people described as military intelligence agents disguised as teachers, including one native Papuan.

The reasoning then sounded exactly like the reasoning now. “For all schools, hospitals and offices, we were forced to issue orders to close and execute,” he said, “because the work is no longer truly carried out by civilian functions.” He also alleged that much of the data showed penetration by intelligence personnel. [1]

He also urged all migrants, and any native Papuans cooperating with the state, to leave Yahukimo. He said his group would not hesitate to execute them if it found them on the road. That sentence is not a hint. It is a target list. [1]

In the same month, Jubi recorded another claim from the same regional command: eight people described as security personnel disguised as illegal gold miners in Korowai were killed. The claim was presented as retaliation for the deaths of two of their members, Marten Heluka and Yoper Payage, in a firefight in Dekai on May 17, 2026. [1]

The teachers who died in Yahukimo

The names before Arifudin show that this threat is not empty rhetoric. Exactly a year before the Dekai execution, on October 11, 2025, a teacher with the Nenda Papua Service Foundation, Melani M. Wamea, died after being assaulted in Holuwon, Yahukimo. The case was investigated by Yahukimo police.

Before that, on March 21, 2025, an armed group attacked Anggruk district in the same regency. Two teachers and several civilians died; students ran into the forest, and a surviving teacher told BBC News Indonesia that the attackers shot at them. We documented that attack in a separate report. [5] [6] [7] [8]

Then on February 2, 2026, Daniel Datti (41) died at a junior high school in Dekai. He was working on furniture for school tables and chairs when he was attacked. According to the then-head of operations of the Damai Cartenz task force, Police Brigadier General Faizal Ramadhani, the victim suffered serious wounds to the head, back and knee; classroom windows and a car near the school were also damaged. [9] [10]

Those who attacked the schools and killed the teachers were not a small group that happened to pass by. In Yahukimo, the same regional command has repeatedly announced on its own that schools, health centres and offices are treated as part of the battlefield. [3] [11]

Who Kodap XVI Yahukimo is

Penihas Heluka, also known as Kopi Tua, commander of the Yamue battalion, was sentenced to 13 years in prison by the Wamena district court. But he escaped from the Wamena prison in 2025, and according to the group's spokesman he rejoined TPNPB Kodap XVI Yahukimo. Police recorded a rise in attacks in Yahukimo after that escape. Brigadier General Elkius Kobak, also named in the group's claims, is on the wanted list.

Penihas Heluka, commander of the Yamue battalion, has been tried and sentenced to 13 years in prison by the Wamena district court. Brigadier General Elkius Kobak, also named in the group's claims, remains a fugitive on the wanted list. [16] [17] [18]

On August 3–4, 2026, the group attacked central Dekai: the new market and a fried-food area. By its own account, three service members were killed. In that statement it used the same line that reappears this October: “If the Indonesian military wants to chase us, come to the TPNPB Kinbule base on Jalan Gunung in Dekai. We are ready.” [16] [17] [18]

What is denied

The claim that the civilians they killed were service members or intelligence agents has been repeatedly denied by the state. The military stated that three civilians shot dead in Yahukimo were not security intelligence personnel. The defence ministry has also rejected the group's claims of activity in Yahukimo as disinformation.

The “intelligence agent” framing has a single function: justification. Once someone is called a spy, killing them turns from murder into punishment. The pattern repeats across Papua: teachers in Beoga, health workers in Tambrauw, and now a teacher in Dekai. [12]

Human rights bodies in Papua argue the problem is not only the armed group. Theo Hesegem of the Papua Justice and Wholeness Foundation described the events in Yahukimo as the state's failure to carry out its most basic duty: protecting civilians. Komnas HAM recorded six human rights violation cases in Papua during 2026 with 21 people dead. [1] [13]

What is not yet certain

We report this group's claim because it announced the killing itself, and because the earlier pattern is documented. But several things cannot yet be established, and that must be said.

First, the victim's identity and profession. As of this writing, no official statement names Arifudin or his profession as a teacher. What exists is the statement by the group that says it killed him. We report it as their claim, not as verified fact.

Second, the allegation that he was an army corporal or an intelligence agent. No public evidence supports it, and security forces have not yet responded. The same framing has been used to justify the killing of other civilians in Yahukimo, and in several cases the state has denied it.

Third, the numbers. The claims of “four teachers” and “eight service members” come from the same group; there is no independent victim list. The casualty figures we use for the 2025 and early 2026 incidents come from the police and from news reports, not from the group's claims.

What we did not write

We do not write that the teacher killed on October 11, 2026 was in fact a service member or an intelligence agent. There is no public evidence for that. What can be substantiated is that the armed group stated it as its reason, and that it published a list of other civilians who will follow.

We also do not write that all violence in Yahukimo is the work of one regional command. Other groups operate in the area, there are differences between factions, and some cases have no clear perpetrator. What we write is specific: this command's claim over particular incidents, attributed clearly in every paragraph.

And we do not write that the killing of a teacher can be explained by war. Teachers are not combatants, students are not targets, and a meatball-soup seller is not a service member. If the armed logic in Yahukimo continues to be applied, the next list is already written in that press release.