Police to report on tribal fight

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THE police force is preparing a report to present to Prime Minister James Marape to address ongoing tribal fighting in Hela, Police Minister Bryan Kramer says.
Kramer, acting deputy commissioner David Manning and special service division director acting Chief Supt Julius Tasion went on a two-day, fact-finding trip to Karida village in Hela along with Hela Governor Philip Undialu to prepare a report for a government response to last Monday’s massacre of 16 women and two infants.
“You all know each other and who is involved. We are here to go back, do report to solve this tribal fight in the long term. The arm of the Government is long, so I call on these suspects to surrender,” Kramer said.
“Don’t think that government will not search for you in the jungles. It is not hard for the government to search for you. We can use technology to search for you. I’m here to find out how to deploy manpower (police and soldiers) and logistics (vehicles, communications etc to search for the suspects).
“I know they have escaped to the other places. I’m calling on the men not to retaliate because killings will continue. And when killings continue, then women and children become victims just like this.
“I heard that this fighting started in 2006 and is still on going and killings have been going on. But this is the first time to killing women and children.”
Kramer said they were in Karida because Marape had directed them to go to Tari to assure the people that the government was committed to addressing the issues.