Transcript
A man in Port Moresby was this week rescued by police after being attacked by villagers over the death of the local rugby league star Kato Ottio. The man was alleged to have used witchcraft to kill the young athlete who died unexpectedly in hospital this month after collapsing. With results of a post mortem still pending, speculation over the reasons for Ottio's death has run rife among PNG's grieving public. A Lutheran missionary who works to protect victims of sorcery-related violence, Anton Lutz, says that PNG's active Facebook community has shown fervent views.
"Maybe two-thirds of the comments are people saying either I don't know if sorcery is real but if so then this suspect should be attacked by the mob and killed, or people saying outright, he should be killed. We had rather gruesome remarks going around the different Facebook pages where people were advocating for his death and his torture and for people to take the law into their own hands."
PNG's Police Minister Jelta Wong says they've put a task force together to combat people who breathe life into sorcery allegations.
"Papua New Guinea has come online with internet and social media and people get curious on what the rest of the world is doing. What they are doing now, used to happen in the 16th and 14th century in England. You see, somebody is feeding the wrong information to our people."
This comes as a six year old girl who was accused of using sorcery and attacked in November by villagers in Enga province is reported to be recovering well. The girl's mother had been burned alive in a public market in Mt Hagen in 2013 after being accused of using sorcery. She was eventually rescued by Anton Lutz and had to receive medical treatment for wounds and burns sustained all over her body from heated bush knives.
"I'm not sure where her eventual home will be or if it will even be in PNG but she will be protected for the rest of her life and we will keep her identity secret and hope that she is able to live a full life."
Meanwhile, PNG's Chief Justice Sir Salamo Injia has accepted compensation from leaders of a tribe that carried out a sorcery-related attack against him two weeks ago, again in Enga. The provincial police commander George Kakas said the attackers, armed with stones and machetes, were expecting reparation from Sir Salamo's tribe after two of its members were accused of killing a man by sorcery.
"The CJ also demanded that we get to the bottom of it, meaning that that person will have to be exhumed from the grave. We'll do an autopsy to determine if he's got missing body parts to substantiate the claim that those two lady's from the CJ's tribe were actually performing witchcraft or sorcery on that guy who died."
Police say education is the key to countering sorcery-related attacks. But for now, those working to protect victims say sorcery-related attacks are increasing.
