(CNN) A group of hostages being held for ransom by gunmen in a remote region of Papua New Guinea have now all been freed, the country’s Prime Minister James Marape said on Sunday.
“We apologize to the families of those taken hostage for ransom, it took a while but the last three have been successfully brought back through covert operations without (ransom) payment,” Marape wrote in a Facebook post.
A group of four hostages, including foreign nationals and local leaders, had been captured on Monday by a group of heavily armed men who the national police have described as “opportunists”, but one of them – a woman – was freed on Wednesday .
In a tweet on Sunday, New Zealand’s Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta welcomed the release of the group, which included a New Zealander who is a professor at an Australian university.
PNG Police Chief David Manning had previously said the kidnappers “accidentally” discovered the group and took them into the bush.
“These are opportunists who obviously didn’t think this situation through before acting and have demanded the cash payment,” Manning said.
Papua New Guinea, a Pacific nation of more than 9 million people, shares an island with Indonesia’s troubled Papua region.
In another incident earlier this month, a New Zealand pilot was taken hostage by Separatist militants in Papua. The pilot, identified by local police as Philip Mehrtens, was arrested after a Susi Air commercial charter flight landed at Paro Airport in the remote highlands of the Nduga Regency.
The group previously called for all incoming flights to Paro Airport to be halted and said the pilot would not be released until the Indonesian government recognized Papua’s independence.