Women and children are among those raped, killed and decapitated in an outbreak of horrific violence on Australia’s doorstep.
The violent attacks on three remote villages in the Angoram district of East Sepik, in Papua New Guinea’s (PNG) north, has likely killed 26 people, including 16 children, while several people were forced to flee after attackers set fire to their homes, the United Nations said.
‘I am 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,’ U.N. Human Rights Chief Volker Turk said in a statement released on Wednesday.
The death toll could rise to more than 50 as PNG authorities search for missing people, Turk said.
More than 200 people had to flee their homes after it was torched in the attacks that happened in the East Sepik province on July 16 and 18.
About 33 men from a youth gang called ‘I don’t care’ burned houses before killing an elderly man and a five-year-old boy in the Angrumara village on July 17, news.com.au reported.
The village of Tambari was also attacked the following day while most of the villagers were sleeping, with women and young girls raped and killed, and some male villagers also murdered.
Acting East Sepik Provincial Police Commander Senior Inspector James Baugen told the Papua New Guinea Post-Courier that mothers nursing their babies were decapitated and the bodies of the victims mutilated.
The violent attacks on three remote villages in the Angoram district of East Sepik, in Papua New Guinea’s (PNG) north, has likely killed 26 people, including 16 children, while several people were forced to flee after attackers set fire to their homes, the United Nations said
‘Most of the bodies were found, their heads were chopped off. Some are mothers who were trying to save their children from being slaughtered,’ he said.
‘The crime scene is rotting with dead bodies. Some of the bodies were seen floating down the Sepik River and taken by crocodiles.’
One woman told PNG newspaper The National about how she clung to a log to avoid the attackers.
‘I could hear women wailing in pain, children crying out. I was lucky the men didn’t see me,’ she said.
‘Three of my sisters were raped but escaped while another seven are missing. Three mothers with infants were killed and the babies taken away.’
Mr Turk urged PNG 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’.
Home to hundreds of tribes and languages, the Pacific nation to Australia’s north has a long history of tribal warfare.
However, violence has ratcheted up over the past decade as villagers swapped bows and arrows for military rifles and elections deepened existing tribal divides.
Eight people were killed and 30 homes torched in fighting in the Enga province in May, while at least 26 men were killed in an ambush in the same region in February.
The escalation of violence comes as the National Rugby League (NRL) and the Albanese government are believed to be finalising a deal to establish an NRL team in the country.
The proposal is expected to be supported by $600million in Federal government funding over 10 years.
Rugby league, considered the national game in PNG, is seen as a vehicle for ‘sports diplomacy’ to counter the growing influence of China in the small nation.
