Dozens dead in Papua New Guinea tribal battle
MELBOURNE, Australia: At least 26 combatants and an unconfirmed number of bystanders were killed in a clash between warring tribes in Papua New Guinea, police said on Monday.
A tribe, their allies and mercenaries were on their way to attack a neighboring tribe when they were ambushed in Enga province, in the South Pacific nation’s remote highlands, on Sunday, Royal Papua New Guinea Constabulary Acting Supt. George Kakas said.
Police Commissioner David Manning later described the clash as a “gun battle between warring tribes,” and said an unconfirmed number of villagers were also killed and more police officers were sent to the scene.
“At this point, it’s not clear exactly how far we have moved into the conflict there,” Manning told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. “But the intent is to regain control or have a significant presence in that conflict area and then work ... our way through our procedures in dealing with this type of incident.”
Kakas initially said 53 combatants had died, but security forces later lowered the death toll to 26.
Bodies were collected from the battlefield, roads and the riverside, then loaded onto police trucks and taken to the hospital. Authorities were still counting “those who were shot, injured and ran off into the bushes,” Kakas said.
Papua New Guinea is a diverse nation of 10 million people, most of them subsistence farmers, with hundreds of languages. Internal security has become an increasing challenge for its government as China, the United States and Australia seek closer security ties to the country in a strategically important part of the South Pacific.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said his government was ready to assist Papua New Guinea, his country’s nearest neighbor and the largest single recipient of its foreign aid.
“That is very disturbing news that has come out of Papua New Guinea,” Albanese said before the death toll was revised down.
“We remain available to provide whatever support we can in a practical way, of course, to help our friends in PNG,” he added, using the country’s acronym.
Albanese said Australia was already providing “considerable support” for Papua New Guinea and was helping train the country’s police officers.
Tribal violence in the Enga region has intensified since elections in 2022 that kept Prime Minister James Marape’s administration in power. Elections and accompanying allegations of cheating and process anomalies have always triggered violence throughout the country.
Enga Gov. Peter Ipatas said there had been warnings that tribal fighting was about to erupt.
“From a provincial perspective, we knew this fight was going to be on and we [alerted] the security forces last week to make sure they took appropriate action to ensure this didn’t occur,” he said.
The governor described the violence as a “very, very sad occasion for us in the province and it’s a bad thing for the country.”
Scores of people have died in tribal fighting in Enga in the past year.
Port Moresby’s Post-Courier newspaper has reported that highpowered firearms used in the recent fighting made it risky for police to enter the battlefields.
Police said they were assisted by the military in protecting the general public and government property.
Papua New Guinea government lawyer Oliver Nobetau expected more lives would be lost in retaliation for the massacre.
“There’s a big concern that this will continue. Revenge killings tend to be a normal thing that happens,” said Nobetau, who is on temporary assignment to the Sydney-based international policy think tank Lowy Institute.
“Tribal violence is something that happens commonly, but never [on] this scale,” he added.