Gunshot survivor tells of incident that left one dead, one injured

By JUNIOR UKAHA
TWENTY-four-year-old Bobby Brit, one of the three victims shot by a soldier last Thursday in Hohola, Port Moresby, said everything happened so fast that he thought he was dreaming.
Only one of the three – Lois Matamon – a mother of six children, died.
Brit and the other victim, a student, were hospitalised with gunshot wounds.
Brit, from Walis Island, East Sepik, had a bullet go through his right hip and come out his left bum. He said he was standing on a concrete stairway at the PNG Power compound that evening when he was hit by a bullet.
“I was with a group of people trying to see the commotion when I heard a gunshot.  
“The gunshot caught everyone by surprise,” he said.
“The next bullet fired hit me and I fell to the ground unconscious.
“It happened so fast that I did not know that I was hit with a bullet,” he said.
“I was unconscious. Then I was in pain and couldn’t walk.” 
He said while he was on the ground, he saw everyone taking cover as seven or eight shots rang out.
“One of his (the solider who was shooting) sons in the vehicle came out and confronted me while I was in pain,” Brit said.
He said the soldier shouted in Tok Pisin: “Yupela save lon me o nogat, mi man blong kilim man (You people know me or not, I am a man who kills people).”
The incident happened between 7pm and 8pm.
 One witness yesterday told The National that about four people were in the vehicle that the suspect was driving.
The passengers in the vehicle were identified by witnesses as the soldier’s wife and sons.
The soldier lives about 300m from the compound in Murray Barracks and is known to the community there.
Murray Barracks houses senior defence officials and the army headquarters.
Brit said the man used a pistol in the shooting.
One student at the Ted Diro Primary School, about 500m from where the incident happened, said the same soldier assaulted some male students at the school and fired two gunshots into the air after one of his sons, who attended another school, had a fight with students at the school a few months back.
Brit, a production assistant with Biz Printing in Port Moresby, said he was lucky to be alive because the bullet missed his organs.
“I was admitted to the Port Moresby General Hospital the same night and was discharged on Monday afternoon.
“For three days I had excreted blood.”
Brit said a Grade 9 student from Gerehu Secondary School and who lived with her elder brother at the compound, was also shot, but survived.