14 Feb 2012

PNG ferry disaster prompts Aropa runway opening

4:15 pm on 14 February 2012

There is agreement on the Papua New Guinea island of Bougainville to re-open the Aropa runway to receive the bodies of locals who died in the ferry sinking off Morobe.

The Post Courier reports this was decided by dissident armed groups and those that own and man the runway.

It says this will make it easier for the relatives to come and receive the bodies of their children and relatives who died when the MV Rabaul Queen sank.

There have been suggestions that had the airport at Aropa been open and in operation, lives of innocent Bougainvilleans would have been saved because they would not have had to take the ferry.

Before the civil war, Aropa was the island's main airport.