Police keeping people informed

By SYLVESTER WEMURU
POLICE in Telefomin, West Sepik, are working to ensure people in the district are informed on the current state of emergency (SOE) and national lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The district’s police force is using their two-way radios and their mobile phones to communicate with presidents and the wards’ councillors in villages they cannot reach on foot.
Telefomin police station commander Snr Const Prais Kayius said they were passing on information, particularly to village leaders at the border, to make sure people were not travelling to Jayapura during the lockdown and the SOE period.
He said most of the villagers at Yapsi and Hewaki local level governments were situated along the border with Indonesia, so it was crucial that they received information about the lockdown and restrictions on travelling across the border.
Snr Const Kayius said because of the distance and the geography, villages along the border were difficult to reach and do awareness at or set up check points so they were relying on the village leaders of Tumolbil and Busulmil, in Yapsi LLG, which were known to have frequent access to the Indonesian side of West Papua.
“Currently, we do not know what is happening at the border,” he said.
“But we are trying our best to keep close contact with the village leaders so they will update us on the movement of people and if anything serious happens, we will report it to the responsible authorities. To get to these villages we will have to walk for more than two days.”
Snr Const Kayius said currently in Telefomin, they were conducting awareness on the coronavirus and also on other law and order issues. He said drug smuggling from Hela to Telefomin then to these boarder villages and to Tabubil had been a problem they were trying to stop.