He added: “I call on communities within and outside our province to co-operate with police to restore law and order. The torturing and murdering must stop now. “I condemn this violence and these false accusations. “This week alone there have been two more incidences of sanguma accusations in Enga Province and 20 innocent women in the space of the past month have been victims of this accusation-based violence,” the governor said. Governor of Enga Province Sir Peter Ipatas has appealed to law-abiding citizens to help stamp out the practice of accusing people of sorcery. “They made sure he had no mobile phone made sure he could not walk out. “They believe she would kill many of them in the village so they thought it would be proper to terminate her life.”Ĭommander Nili said the mob also ensured the victim’s father was unable to call for help. “When the villagers learnt that she was Leniata’s daughter they presumed that she may have possessed the sanguma spirit.
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“And because her mother was the late Leniata Kepari, who was burnt alive in 2013 in Mt Hagen due to sorcery accusations, all eyes full on the little girl. “The girl was accompanied by her father to Tukusanda village when rumours of sanguma started going around,” Enga acting provincial police commander Epenes Nili told online news portal Loop PNG. However, public outrage in PNG over the age of the most recent victim has forced authorities to take action. “Until this happens, PNG will be known as the nation that not only tortures falsely accused witches but now even tortures innocent children.” “The only way to stop this barbaric behaviour is through arrests and prosecution of those responsible,” he says. And now her daughter, rescuer Bustin says, has paid a horrific price. Despite being photographed by various onlookers at the scene, none of the those responsible for Kepari’s immolation in 2013 were brought to justice. Nevertheless, prosecutions for sorcery-related killings remain rare in PNG. The victims included two infant girls snatched from their mothers’ arms and hacked to death with machetes.
In a high-profile case heard at Madang National Court earlier this year, 122 men and juveniles, some as young as 10, were successfully prosecuted over a 2014 raid on a neighbouring village where the mob burned down houses and killed seven people accused of sorcery. The event also led to Parliament’s repealing of the bizarre 1971 Sorcery Act that criminalised sorcery and allowed reduced sentences for vigilantes who claimed their victims were sorcerers. The utterly heinous nature of Kepari’s death and consequent global backlash by human rights groups led to the reintroduction of the death-penalty in PNG in 2013. The injuries the six-year-old received as part of the attack.
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