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 Papua is one of Indonesia's poorest provinces despite being rich in
resources and President Joko Widodo pledged to speed its development
when he came to power in 2014.
The situation in the remote Asmat regency was an "extraordinary
incident", the health ministry said in a statement, adding that it
was sending 39 health workers there.
The Indonesian military has sent 53 personnel including paramedics,
besides medical equipment, vaccines and 11,100 packages of instant
food, it added.
"We are handling the situation," Health Minister Nila Moeloek told
Reuters, blaming similar previous incidents on several factors.
"There is a link between the malnutrition and (catching) other
diseases," Moeloek added. "If you're undernourished, you will get
those diseases."
The ministry said it was still trying to estimate the number of
deaths but daily newspaper Kompas on Monday said at least 61 infants
had died.
Many Papuans, who are predominantly Christian and a minority in the
Muslim-majority country, criticize the government in Jakarta for
neglecting Papua and instead being too focused on the
densely-populated island of Java.
The province has also had a long-running and sometimes violent
separatist movement since it was incorporated into Indonesia after a
widely criticized U.N.-backed referendum in 1969.
Catholic priest and rights activist John Jonga, blamed the crisis on
a lack of vaccinations and a switch from more nutritious tubers to
rice as a staple food.
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He said he had voiced questions over Widodo's policy of sending aid
to Palestine and Myanmar's Rohingya Muslim minority, rather than to
Papua at a recent seminar at the Indonesia Institute of Sciences in
Jakarta, the capital.
"We are lacking health facilities," Jonga said. "That's why in the
seminar I asked why the president was busy with Myanmar and building
a hospital in Gaza. Whereas in Papua, we have problems, difficulties
with drugs and medical workers."
One minister denied the extent of the health crisis had taken the
government by surprise.
"We have anticipated this since September 2017," Puan Maharani, the
coordinating minister for human development, told reporters.
"The location in Asmat is not easy to monitor. We have asked the
health ministry to coordinate for this (health crisis) to be
evaluated."
(Reporting by Kanupriya Kapoor, Agustinus Beo Da Costa and Maikel
Jeffriando; Writing by Ed Davies; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
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