At least 26 people were killed, including 16 children,
during attacks by a gang of young men on three Papua New Guinea villages
last week, police have said, adding that their houses were torched and other
villagers were still missing.
Angoram police station commander Inspector Peter Mandi told
reporters on Thursday an unconfirmed number of women and girls were also raped
before being killed in the Sepik River villages of Tamara, Tambari, and
Angrumara in East Sepik’s Angoram district.
The rapes and massacre were carried out by a group of more
than 30 young men from a gang who call themselves “I don’t care”, he said.
“Last Wednesday, on the 17th, the group armed with guns,
machetes and wire catapults attacked Angrumara village, burned houses and
killed an elderly man and a 5-year-old boy,” he said.
“The next day, they attacked Tambari village, raped women
and young girls and then slashed them with machetes, young children were also
slashed with the machetes.” He said three people had been confirmed dead on
Angrumara and 23 in Tambari, with 16 children among them.
“So far, 26 are confirmed dead from both villages, whilst
the villagers who fled are still unaccounted for,” he said. It was unclear when
the third village, Tamara, was attacked.
The villages are located in a remote area that is difficult
to access by road and local police only arrived in the area on Tuesday, with
reinforcements from national police arriving on Thursday. Police said they
would search for the gang along the Sepik River and expected that the death
toll would increase.
Many of the survivors fled into the surrounding bush. One
survivor of the Tambari massacre who reached the police station in Angoram said
that all the homes in their village had been burned to the ground and that
villagers had fled with only the clothes on their backs, according to a police
statement. Locals feared further attacks by the gang, it said.
Mandi said that police had yet to establish why the gang
attacked the villages and called for additional police manpower to arrest its
members, all of whom were still at large.
Earlier the UN high commissioner for human rights, Volker
Türk, had said he was “horrified by the shocking eruption of deadly violence
in Papua New
Guinea, seemingly as the result of a dispute over land and lake ownership
and user rights.”
He said the number of dead could rise to more than 50 and
called on Papua
New Guinea authorities “to conduct prompt, impartial and transparent
investigations and to ensure those responsible are held to account. It is also
vital that victims and their families receive reparations, including adequate
housing, effective protection against further attacks and necessary
psychosocial support.”
He urged authorities “to work in and with the affected
communities to address the root causes of land and lake disputes, and so
prevent recurrence of further violence”.
His comments echoed those made by his office in February
calling on Papua New Guinea to address the root causes of escalating
tribal violence in the country after dozens were killed in a
particularly violent clash between rival tribes.
Conflicts among 17 tribal groups had progressively escalated
since elections in 2022 over issues including land disputes and clan rivalries,
a spokesperson said at the time.
Clans have fought each other in Papua New Guinea for
centuries, but an influx of mercenaries and automatic weapons has inflamed the
cycle of violence.
The country’s population has more than doubled since 1980,
placing increasing strain on land and resources, and deepening tribal
rivalries.
