Human sacrifice cult in shootout with PNG police: report



Sydney - Papua New Guinea police and members of a cult suspected of human sacrifices clashed in a gunbattle that left several people dead and wounded, local media reported Wednesday.

Riot police have been flown into a remote mountainous area in the province of Morobe to restore order after a series of incidents, The National newspaper reported.

Police believe they are dealing with a cult movement involved in "willful murders and human sacrifices as offerings to their gods," the paper said.
Belief in witchcraft and the supernatural is widespread in the half-island state north of Australia, and women accused of sorcery are regularly killed by mobs.

Provincial police commander Augustine Wampe said that suspicions were first aroused when a child was kidnapped recently by Songita villagers.
Four officers who set out to free the child were ambushed.

"Gunfire was exchanged and one of the policemen was injured in the leg with an arrow. Another policeman fell over a cliff," Wampe said.

Reinforcements were despatched but the team of eight officers was forced to retreat after an exchange of gunfire with the villagers in which one man was reported killed and several injured.

The villagers regrouped and went on a rampage, attacking police and public servants and burning down houses, Wampe said.

They also killed a man believed to be a tribal enemy, chopping up the body, he said, but was unable to give a total of the number of people killed in the unrest.

Agence France Presse