29 flee from prisons

By DYLAN MURRAY and ZACHERY PER
TWENTY-NINE remandees and prisoners have escaped from two prisons in Papua New Guinea in the past five days.
Twenty-two inmates broke out of Madang’s Beon Prison yesterday morning and seven others escaped from Kainantu’s Bundaira Prison in Eastern Highlands on Thursday. Correctional Services commissioner Stephen Pokanis said the Beon inmates broke out between 2am and 4am.
“It will take time as prison officials have to run through their files for their (the prisoners) biodata,” he added.
The detainees report will confirm who is unaccounted for and are presumed to have been among those who fled.
Pokanis said the prisoners took advantage of the bad weather conditions as well as the lack of power in the prison.
“They escaped during heavy rain and a blackout,” he added.
The Beon breakout is the second mass breakout from the 21 prisons in the country after General Election 2022.
On Oct 10, 26 inmates from West New Britain’s Lakiemata Prison escaped and 24 are still on the run after cutting the outer fence of the facility and dashing for freedom in midday Oct 10. “Only fugitives were recaptured,” Pokanis said.
Pokanis appealed to the public in Eastern Highlands and Madang to report to the police if they sighted people behaving suspiciously in their area.
In Bundaira, Pokanis said more than 30 inmates were taken out on Thursday morning for routine work parade and were supervised by only one prison warden when nine of them dashed for freedom.
However, two of them were recaptured.
Pokanis said the other prison inmates decided to remain and returned to the prison compound after the work parade.
“We will now look into how a single prison warden brought a large number of prisoners out for work parade in the early hours,
The remandees were men from Gadsup’s Biwaka village in Obura-Wonenara in Eastern Highlands.
They were committed to stand trial the National Court for breaking into the Obura-Wonenara district administration office in Aiyura in 2021.
They damaged the office building and destroyed office equipment valued at more than K1.3 million, an officer said.
He said police raided Biwaka village and rounded up the men, a committal court in Kainantu then committed them to stand trial in the National Court.
Bundaira Prison Commander Superintendent Laga Gaoma could not be reached for comments.