The Papua New Guinea government has condemned ‘horrific acts of cannibalism’ in the country, sparked by disturbing images of a group of warriors preparing to eat human body parts.
A video shot in the remote jungle highlands of Australia’s neighbour show a tribal warrior ‘licking’ a severed human foot while another holds up an amputated hand.
The footage shows a group of men armed with bows, arrows and machetes while holding human body parts.
One of them smiled at the camera as he held the foot to his mouth and said: ‘We are the mafia.We have cut him.’
According to the local media reports, one of the men said: ‘This is our meat. We will cook it and eat it.’
In one photo a man holds up a bloodied body part while another licks his lips.
Images images from the grisly video were published on January 6 on the front page of PNG’s Post Courier newspaper.
The video shows a group of men armed with bows, arrows and machetes holding chopped body parts and one of them smiling as he holds the foot to his mouth and says ‘we are the mafia, we have cut him’
According to the local media reports, one of the men said: ‘This is our meat. We will cook it and eat it’
The video was filmed about a month ago in Saki Village, Goilala District in PNG’s Central Province north of the national capital Port Moresby after a fight between two brothers turned fatal
The video was filmed about a month ago in Saki Village, Goilala District in PNG’s Central Province north of the national capital Port Moresby, after a fight between two brothers turned fatal.
The younger brother allegedly killed his older sibling and the violence escalated, leaving seven dead and some mutilated.
Police Minister Peter Tsiamalili said he was deeply troubled by images that appeared to depict ‘horrific acts of cannibalism’.
‘Such barbarity does not define us as a people or a nation,’ he told AFP.
‘These barbaric actions by a group of youths not only shock our collective conscience but also pose a grave threat to the societal values that bind us as a nation.’
Police have now travelled to Goilala, where communities are clustered around an alluvial gold mining camp and was the scene of a catastrophic landslide five years ago which buried people alive.
The President of the Papua New Guinea Law Society Hubert Namani slammed the barbarity after seeing the horrific footage.
‘I condemn the horrific acts of violence, mutilation, and cannibalism circulating on social media,’ he said.
These acts of inhumanity are a stark reminder of the nation’s law and order situation requires immediate attention.’
Historically, cannibalism has been documented among a small number of tribes in remote parts of Papua New Guinea.
One group, the Fore people, practised cannibalism at ceremonies in the 19th century and up until the 1950s.
Women cut up, cooked, and distributed body parts to female kinsfolk, who often shared it with their children. The brain was a special delicacy.
But when Australian authorities took over administration of Papua New Guinea and one of their first acts was to forbid cannibalism.
Goilala, where communities are clustered around an alluvial gold mining camp is north of Port Moresby in remote jungle which was the scene of a catastrophic landslide five years ago which buried people alive
PNG Law Society president Hubert Namani expressed his horror at the incident in a media release
In response to the Hubert Namani’s statement about the latest incident, the PNG member for the Goilali region has hit back saying it discredits PNG and his community (above)
Subsequently, the open feasting on bodies dropped and the practice disappeared – publicly at least – by the early 1960s.
US President Joe Biden made a gaffe in 2024 when he quipped that his fighter pilot uncle may have been eaten by cannibals after he was shot down during World War II.
‘He got shot down in New Guinea, and they never found the body because there used to be a lot of cannibals, for real, in that part of New Guinea,’ Mr Biden said.
PNG Prime Minister James Marape later dismissed the comment as ‘loose’ talk on the part of the President.
In response to the Hubert Namani’s statement about the latest incident, the member for the Goilali region has hit back.
Casmiro Aia called on Mr Namani to apologise to his community, saying he had misused the word ‘cannibalism’ to describe an unverified and isolated incident.
He said the actual incident was just a violent altercation between brothers when one was killed and dismembered and to call it cannibalism discredited PNG.
***
Read more at DailyMail.co.uk