On top of the human toll, properties and livestock worth thousands of kina in settlements on the fringes of the city were put to the torch yesterday by rampaging tribesmen in retaliation over the deaths and the fires could still be seen simmering by late yesterday afternoon.
According to eyewitnesses, a security supervisor of the Kanges Hotel in Mt Hagen was stabbed to death by a man at the back gate of the hotel.
A 33-year-old security supervisor named as Mathew Koi from the Jika Mulgana tribe near Mt Hagen, had been trying to evict a patron out through the back gate for starting a fight in the hotel, when he was stabbed to death at about 2am yesterday.
Jiga Mulgana tribesmen, upon hearing of their kin’s demise, travelled into the city in truckloads and torched scores of houses in the Hagen T, Bata, HMI and Fish Pond compounds. They chased the settlers away but the settlers rallied and fought back, killing another Jika tribesman and chopping another three, who are fighting for their lives at the hospital.
Hospital authorities yesterday confirmed that three other bodies of settlers were taken to the morgue being the toll from the clash to five – two Jika tribesmen and three settlers.
Four other seriously injured settlers were also taken to hospital.
Police sources said the casualty figure may be higher as some of the settlers may have sustained serious injuries in the clash with the local tribesmen but had no sought medical treatment for their injuries fearing attacks at the hospital.
Mt Hagen metropolitan police chief Supt Theodore Muriki appealed to the Jika tribe and the settlers not to take the law into their hands and let the law take its own course.
Mr Muriki said police intervened very early in the morning and were monitoring the situation very closely.
The situation, however, is very tense and had the potential of erupting exponentially, police said.
They have condoned off vast tracks of the settlement and Mt Hagen has become a ghosttown, with most residents fearing the worst and staying indoors.