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Hundreds of students took to the streets of Palangkaraya in Indonesia on Friday, calling for stronger government action against wildfires that have blanketed the city and surrounding areas in toxic smoke for months.
Many demonstrators wore surgical masks as they gathered beneath an orange-tinted sky, where thick haze had severely reduced visibility.
They carried placards urging authorities to declare a national emergency, a move they said would help secure additional assistance.
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One banner displayed outside the office of Central Kalimantan’s governor criticised officials over their response to the crisis, accusing them of enjoying generous benefits while ordinary citizens continued to suffer.
Central Kalimantan, a province on the island of Borneo, is among the areas affected by the fires.
The demonstrators sang Indonesia’s patriotic song Indonesia Pusaka and briefly clashed with police. No injuries or arrests were reported. The crowd later left peacefully as night fell.
Protest leader Yuyun Sanjaya urged the provincial government to acknowledge that it could not contain the disaster and support its formal declaration as a national emergency.
Sanjaya questioned why vulnerable residents, including elderly people and newborns, were being forced to breathe heavily polluted air without sufficient government intervention.
“We call upon the Central Kalimantan provincial government to state clearly that it is unable to mitigate this disaster, so that the situation may be officially designated a national disaster,” protest leader Yuyun Sanjaya told the crowd.
“How is it possible that such thick, dense smoke is being inhaled by helpless elderly people and newborn infants, and the government simply lets it happen?”
According to deforestation monitor Nusantara Atlas, wildfires burned more than 1.9 million hectares in the nine months to September. The Indonesian government has neither confirmed nor disputed the figure.
The resulting haze has caused illness among thousands of people in Indonesia and spread to neighbouring Malaysia, Singapore and East Timor.
Anger over the crisis has also grown within Indonesia, where sporadic protests have taken place alongside diplomatic complaints from neighbouring countries.
On Thursday, schoolchildren on Java island prayed for rain as fires continued to affect several regencies and conservation areas.
