Trucks looted

By LORRAINE JIMAL
POLICE officers and soldiers watched helplessly as people, including women and children, looted five container trucks they were escorting along a highway in Enga on Saturday.
“The security forces could not do much for fear of harming women and children who were also involved in the looting,” Enga police commander acting Superintendent George Kakas said.
The incident happened along the Laiagam-Porgera highway. Policemen and soldiers were escorting the trucks carrying food to Porgera when they were stopped by the Laiagam tribesmen.
Kakas said the tribesmen did not want any food supplies delivered to Porgera to punish the people there for their ongoing fighting causing deaths and destruction to properties.
“They (Laiagam tribesmen) said the Porgera people were getting their strength to fight from eating rice and fish brought in by the containers,” he said.
“So they do not deserve to eat good food and continue fighting.”
Kakas said the villagers set up road blocks to stop the trucks.
“There were some retaliation and gun fire exchanges. It is believed some of the villagers were injured, but none fatal,” he said.
Kakas said three trucks were looted, while the security forces managed to secure and save the other two.
He said it was a well-planned attack by the villagers.
No security officers were injured. Porgera Chamber of Commerce and Industry president Nickson Pakea said it was not the first time people along the highway had looted trucks carrying food supplies.
Pakea said if it continued, businesses would be forced to stop supplying goods to Porgera, which would affect the people.
He said the five trucks were travelling from Mt Hagen to Porgera when the incident occurred along the area of the Aiyak and Yakenda people.
He urged the Government and authorities to address the issue as it would affect innocent people.
Kakas said during an awareness earlier that community leaders in Laiagam had agreed to stop attacking people on the highway.