Police yet to investigate robbing of relief supplies

Police in Papua New Guinea's Western Highlands Provincial  are yet to investigate the incident where relief supplies meant for drought affected areas in the province were robbed. Disaster Coordinator Robin Yakumb said the incident happened last week when locals at Tambul-Nebilyer District storm the District Administration Office and robbed relief supplies.

Mr Yakumb said it will be a difficult one because it was the whole community that were involved and the police cannot prosecute the whole community.

He said the police will have to find a proper approach to address this issue as the people did it because they were starving and cannot wait for another three months before receiving these food supplies.

“The supplies robbed were only 2000 bags of rice and 1500 cartons of tinned fish which was not quite enough to feed more than 8000 people in the District”, Mr Yakumb said.

He said the delay in the delivery instigated the robbing of the supplies and his office cannot do anything about it and he is requesting the Provincial Administration to address the issue by providing for

food relief for the people and have them delivered and not delayed to avoid such incidents in the future.