Jakarta. Indonesia has filed a request with Timor-Leste asking for clarification after its citizen got shot in a recent violent border dispute, according to Foreign Affairs Ministry’s spokesman Vahd Nabyl A Mulachela.

Indonesian citizen Paulus Kaet Oki recently sustained a gunshot wound in his right shoulder during a border clash in Inbate village, which lies in the North Central Timor regency of East Nusa Tenggara. The injury was minor as the shooter had used a rubber bullet. Timor-Leste had previously sent an armed patrol unit to the site amidst border disagreements involving local villagers. The unit allegedly fired at the villagers, leaving Paulus wounded. 

Nabyl recently told the Jakarta Globe that Indonesia had sent its ambassador in Dili, Okto Dorinus Manik, to the location of the shooting. Paulus has also already received medical treatment for the wound.  

“Our ambassador has coordinated with the people on the ground regarding the incident. The Indonesian Embassy in Dili has requested Timor Leste’s Foreign Ministry’s clarification,” the senior diplomat wrote to the Globe via text. 

Timor-Leste has yet to issue an official statement in regards to the border conflict as of writing. 

The differing interpretations of a 2005 preliminary border agreement was behind the recent altercations. Prior to the shooting, Dili had sent construction workers to set up border barriers in Inbate, sparking fury from local villagers who claimed that the work had disrupted their ancestral farmland. East Nusa Tenggara border authorities revealed that the contested fence construction could seize up to 12.5 hectares of Indonesian villagers’ farmland, according to the 2005 pact.

Timor-Leste declared its independence in 2002, and has yet reached a full agreement on the land borderlines with Indonesia even to this day. When Timor-Leste’s Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao made an official visit to Bogor last year, the two neighbors pledged to settle their border issues, even agreeing to reactivate their joint committee to deal with the matter.