21 Nov 2011

Dilemma for homeless victims of Lae rioting in PNG

12:49 pm on 21 November 2011

Hundreds of people made homeless by rioting in Papua New Guinea's second biggest city are still living in temporary shelters.

A number of people died in ethnic clashes that erupted in the Morobe province city of Lae earlier this month and hundreds of homes of Highlands immigrants were burnt down.

Our correspondent in Lae, Oseah Philemon, says solving the problem of rehousing those people is something on which the newly-formed Peace and Reconciliation committee is working.

"How they resettle them is another question and that's going to be a difficult one because all of them have lost their homes, you can't send them back to where they came from in the villages, many of them have lived here for a long time and have built their homes here so it's going to be very difficult."

Oseah Philemon says although the situation in Lae is calm the atmosphere remains very tense.