AN army spokesman confirmed last night that 12 hostages still being held by separatist rebels in remote Irian Jaya province are healthy but thin.
He also dismissed rumours that one of the six remaining foreign captives, United Nations Development Programme employee Martha Klein, might have been suffering from malaria.
Military spokesman for the Trikora Command, which includes Irian Jaya, Lieutenant-Colonel Maulud said a Red Cross doctor believed to be Ferenc Mayer visited the 12 by helicopter yesterday.
The doctor returned with a villager suffering from bronchial pneumonia.
Colonel Maulud quoted the doctor as saying all were well but were showing signs of malnutrition. The group has lived largely on village food for nearly two months in some of Indonesia's most inhospitable terrain.
It was the first contact most of the hostages had had with the outside world since they were abducted by a group known as the Free Papua Movement on January 8 in Mapunduma village about 4,000 kilometres east of Jakarta.
