Jayapura, Jubi – Papuan human rights defender and recipient of the Yap Thiam Hien Award (1999) and the Goldman Environmental Prize (2001), Mama Yosepha Alomang, has undergone cataract surgery at an eye hospital on Cik Ditiro Street in Jakarta.
She is currently staying in the hospital as an inpatient so her condition can be closely monitored, as her post-operative treatment requires regular care and medication.
Aloysius Renwarin, a lawyer who has long accompanied Alomang, said close medical supervision is particularly important for her eye treatment, including administering prescribed eye drops at specific times.
“I hope PT Freeport Indonesia will cover her ongoing inpatient treatment at the eye hospital rather than leaving her to manage her care as an outpatient,” Renwarin told Jubi in Jayapura on Friday (7 August 2026).
Renwarin said Alomang’s vision had deteriorated severely, with only one of her eyes still able to perceive light, although she could no longer clearly recognise people’s faces.
“She is around 82 years old, and her age has also affected her eyesight. We hope she can receive inpatient care so that her condition can be properly monitored. While she has been in Jakarta, she has generally received treatment as an outpatient, which has made it difficult to ensure consistent care,” he said.
Alomang was born in Akimuga, Mimika Regency, now part of Central Papua Province, around 1940. She later moved to Timika with her husband and two children when the area was still largely forested and had little settlement activity. “I worked in Timika, helping the Amungme people and accompanying my husband in the field and in the Kwamki Lama settlement,” Alomang recalled in an earlier interview.
From a young age, Alomang campaigned for the basic rights of Indigenous communities living in the area affected by PT Freeport Indonesia’s operations.
During the 1980s, she was arrested anddetained several times, including in containers belonging to the company.
Many of the senior Amungme figures who were involved in the struggle have since died, including Thom Beanal, a fellow campaigner who helped bring environmental and human rights cases to court in New Orleans, United States. (*)
