PALANGKARAYA (Indonesia), Oct 24 — Hundreds of students protested late Friday in Indonesia’s Palangkaraya, demanding the government do more to tackle a wildfire crisis that has shrouded their city and the wider region in toxic haze for months.
The students, many wearing surgical masks, gathered under an eerily orange sky with severely reduced visibility and waved banners urging authorities to declare a national emergency to free up more aid.
“The officials are morons, yet they get fantastic perks while the lives of the common people are tragic,” read one protest placard nailed to a wall outside the office of the governor of Central Kalimantan — an Indonesian province on the island of Borneo where the fires are taking place.
