Cult-like murder in PNGs Morobe province

11:03 am on 2 April 2015

An elderly man has been brutally murdered and chopped into pieces in Papua New Guinea in a cult-like killing in Finschhafen District over a land dispute between two villages.

According to sources, last Saturday the deceased identified only as Kuaring, a village leader from Gena village in the Hube Rural area, was attacked in front of a terrified public at Pindiu station by youths from neighbouring Naiyalo village.

The Post Courier reports the two villages have been at loggerheads over the discovery of oil at their border of their villages in 2011.

Sources told the newspaper that before the murder, a fight erupted between the two villages almost a fortnight ago and the leaders called for rural police intervention. Kuaring was a party in apprehending the suspects involved in the fight.

Meanwhile, Hube local president Kiwas Naiyos called for immediate intervention from the Morobe provincial police command and the provincial government.

Such barbaric killing was unheard of in the area, he said and he wanted co-operation among all stakeholders to immediately arrest the suspects.

He was concerned that while they are still at large it could lead to retaliation by the other faction, which may lead to a large scale fight.

Kiwas Naiyos said they had heard of such killings in neighbouring Sialum area in the Tewae-Siassi district, and the frequent influx of people between of the two areas had seen cultic influences moving into Hube.