On Tuesday, February 20, the police continued to comb the bush in search of victims of the massacre, committed during the night from Saturday to Sunday, near the town of Wabag (North), some 600 kilometers to the north. west of Papua New Guinea’s capital, Port Moresby. Monday evening, they had already found more than fifty bodies, scattered on roads and along a river. This umpteenth outbreak of violence worries in the Melanesian country plagued by tribal clashes on a scale not seen since the 2022 legislative elections.
According to the authorities of this country of around 10 million inhabitants, up to seventeen tribes are involved in the fighting which is currently bloodying the mountainous province of Enga, in the Highlands. Saturday evening, the warriors of one of these tribes, assisted by mercenaries, were preparing to attack another when they were killed by bullets during an ambush set up by a heavily armed group.
“Businessmen, leaders and educated elites provide weapons, ammunition and finance the recruitment of shooters. They must be identified”, denounced Miki Kaeok, local deputy, on Monday, calling for the establishment of a state of emergency. Already in 2023, clashes between these same tribes had caused around seventy victims. It was then enough for the death of one man to trigger an endless cycle of reprisals across these mountains where, since time immemorial, tribes have resolved their territorial disputes by force and practiced vendetta.
Call to lay down arms
Until recent decades, they followed traditional rules of engagement and fought each other primarily with bows and arrows. Since the 2000s, assault rifles and semi-automatics have gradually appeared in the jungle, making these brawls more deadly. Now villagers have access to the most sophisticated weapons – including drones – from Indonesia and Australia, which are allegedly exchanged for drugs, money and women.
According to George Kakas, the police chief of Enga province, interviewed in August 2023 by the daily The Australian, “businessmen and political figures”worried of “protect their territory and tribal lands”would be involved in this trafficking.
This new cycle of violence, which displaced tens of thousands of people, began during the 2022 legislative elections. Rival political groups then clashed amid accusations of corruption, ballot stuffing and even cheating. in the vote count. “Tribes support different candidates. When one of these candidates is accused of embezzlement, it can cause violence and quickly degenerate into tribal clashes., explains Oliver Nobetau, researcher for the Lowy Institute’s Pacific Islands Program. Despite the deployment of around a hundred soldiers in the region, calm never returned.
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