Police manpower in Kimbe town in West New Britain (WNB) province has been boosted in order to provide security following incidents over the weekend and a chaotic Tuesday morning where two civilians were killed and two others in critical condition, following confrontations between police and criminals.
Provincial Police Commander (PPC), Superintendent Peter Barkie said that the day before the Tuesday morning incident, the relatives of the deceased fronted the provincial government office, demanding justification of the deaths of the 16 prisoners that had attempted to escape from the high security facility over the weekend.
“They tried coming to the provincial government office yesterday, police prevented them from doing that and they were told that this gathering was illegal. If you want to protest, you have to follow the law and that is you request and the PPC will have to approve your request.”
This however, did not go down well with the relatives of the deceased who at nightfall took to the streets of Kimbe Town and started harassing traffic heading west of the town. Police was then dispatched to quell the situation, which led to an altercation with the aggrieved relatives.
“Police went down to stop them from doing that and they decided to take out their frustration on the police.”
This led to the looting of the BNBM Shop in town on Tuesday morning, with further confrontations with police personnel resulting in the deaths of two more civilians.
Due to the lack of numbers in the security personnel to sufficiently contain this issue, the WNB police requested for reinforcements from outside the province. Meanwhile, the first group of police personnel have touched down at Hoskins on Tuesday after, with another full squad expected to reach Kimbe in the evening from East New Britain.