Grieving man said no to revenge

By CLIFFORD FAIPARIK
A GRIEVING father says his tribesmen will not take revenge but allow police and the government to deal with the killers of his wife and children.
Alili Urr, who lost his mother, wife, a child and nine other immediate relatives in the massacre of 16 mothers and two infants at Karida village in the Tagali local level government area of Hela last Monday, said that they would cooperate with the government to solve the matter.
“The dead children and the mothers’ spirits are in heaven and praying for peace. These are Sunday schoolchildren and their mothers are prayer warriors,” Urr said.
“This place has never experienced such violence, we usually live in peace with our family.
“The fight is on the other side in Munima village. How it spilt to here is a mystery.
“I’m calling on the provincial government to get all of us to a neutral area and ask why have these killings gone on like this?
“If you also can relocate us to a care centre and feed us with rations. We, the remaining 500 villagers, need to be relocated because we will not stay here.
“The Munima will still come and kill us. Now we want a unit of police or soldiers to be here.”
Another survivor, Andrew Halu, said that he was sleeping in the men’s house and it was day break last Monday (June 8).
“My wife and four children were sleeping in the family house. When I outside I saw the family house burning.
“My wife was chopped and she is now admitted at the intensive care unit at the Tari hospital. But all four of my children were slaughtered. I was chopped in the arm while I was escaping,” Halu said.
A village leader Hokoko Minapa said there had been no fight like last week’s.
“My people can retaliate. But I said no,” he said.
“The government will do that for us. We will wait for the government action.”