Youths terrorise Madang settlement residents

By DOROTHY MARK
“HAND over your baby to be chopped up or have sex with me!”
That was the terrifying demand a teenager made to a mother of four who was his relative.
However, in the ruckus, the teenager was distracted and Rachel Taimbari and her baby fled.
The teenager and more than 20 others, armed with knives, slingshots and an assortment of weapons, raided Madang’s Biliau Maus Rot settlement at 4am yesterday.
Taimbari’s husband, Harry, was not so lucky. He had his neck slashed and lost all his teeth when a hammer-wielding teenager smashed his face. He, however, survived from the assault.
Taimbari, from Aibom, said: “We (Harry and four children) were fast asleep in our small semi-permanent house when the noisy armed intruders woke us.
“I pulled the room curtain and was confronted by an intruder and more were outside. Harry and I started screaming for help to alert our neighbours.
“Harry climbed the wall, ripped open the roof and screamed for help from his neighbours. More intruders rushed in and they pulled Harry down and assaulted him.
“My children started crying and screaming but they mercilessly beat up Harry. One of them tried to grab my baby.
“I begged him to stop. You are a relative. He then responded by saying ‘If you don’t want the baby to be chopped up, let me have sex with you’.
“No please, no I’m a mother of many children, please don’t do this I beg you please. The teenager was then distracted by the neighbours who rushed up to check the commotion.”
Taimbari’s relative, Jerry Dingus, said a teenager shot him with a catapult when he rushed in to help.
One of them then tore down the curtain, torched it and set fire to a house belonging to Taimbari’s uncle.
Her cousin, Magdalene Gawi, was in the house and warned not to come out. Gawi said she then bundled her three-month-old baby and jump off the window of the high post house as the fire raged.
The matter was reported to the police and investigations have started.
Three teenagers who did not cover their faces have been identified and their identities were given to police.
Biliau Maus Rot settlement has topped the list of petty crimes including stoning of vehicles, stabbing, murder, robbery and now terrorising relatives and village.
The settlers say the terrifying raid by armed teenagers needed the attention of the town authorities and Governor Peter Yama to look into stopping such violence in the province.