Bodies of four exhumed

POLICE in Goroka on Saturday dug up the bodies of three sisters and their brother from a toilet pit in a village outside the Eastern Highlands capital.
The four were chopped to death three months ago and buried after being accused of using sorcery to kill a woman.
The bodies were dug out at Kiteruga village.
Acting Highlands divisional police Commander Chief Supt Thomas Eluh said the four deceased were cut into pieces and their bodies were dumped into an unused toilet pit.
Mr Eluh said those killed were sleeping in their house when the two brothers woke them up from their house at Komoufa village near the University of Goroka and took them to Kiteruga village where they axed them to death.
The deceased were identified as Brus Semena, 50, Sesena Semena, 35, Anna Sesena, 45, a single mother, and Gohao Sesena, 55, a single mother.
Mr Eluh said Goroka police went to the scene with a doctor from the Goroka Base Hospital and removed the bodies from the toilet pit on Saturday and took them to the hospital morgue.
He said the two brothers are known to  the police.
They come from the Komoufa village but have now gone into hiding.
Mr Eluh condemned the killings, saying people had to get away from the practice.
He said sorcery-related killings in the region were becoming a major concern and urged people not to take the law into their own hands.
Mr Eluh said if the people were not sure of the death of their family members or clansmen, they must take the corpse to the hospital near them and allow doctors to carry out postmortem and establish the cause of death instead of accusing innocent people of sorcery.
He also appealed to the people in the region to report to the nearest police station if someone in their community was advocating sorcery-related killings.