At least 26 men were massacred in tribal violence in Papua New Guinea, Australian media reported Monday. A tribe, their allies and mercenaries were on their way to attack a neighboring tribe when they were ambushed Sunday in Enga province in the South Pacific nation's remote highlands, Royal Papua New Guinea Constabulary Acting Superintendent George Kakas told Australian Broadcasting Corp. Kakas initially said 53 had died. But security forces later revised the death toll down to 26, ABC reported. It was not immediately clear whether any of the ambushers might be among the dead, the AP reports.
Bodies were collected from the battlefield, roads and the riverside, then loaded onto police trucks and taken to the hospital. Kakas told ABC authorities were still counting "those who were shot, injured and ran off into the bushes." Internal security has become an increasing challenge for the government of Papua New Guinea as China, the United States and Australia seek closer security ties. Tribal violence in the Enga region has intensified since elections in 2022 that maintained Prime Minister James Marape's administration. Elections and accompanying allegations of cheating and process anomalies have always triggered violence throughout the country.
Papua New Guinea government lawyer Oliver Nobetau expected more lives would be lost in retaliation for the massacre. "Tribal violence is something that happens commonly, but never to this scale," Nobetau added. His comments related to the higher death toll, but he later said they still applied to the revised toll of 26. Police had limited resources to deal with such violence on a "massive scale," Nobetau said.
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