A teacher has been tortured and beheaded by her neighbours in a Papua New Guinea village because they say she was a witch responsible for the death of a sick villager.
The angry mob brandishing guns, machetes and axes surrounded her house and pulled Helen Rumbali, her sister and two nieces away. They then burnt down the house.
They say a swarm of fire flies led them from the deceased person’s grave to her house – sure evidence they say that she was a sorcerer and was practicing black magic.
Helen’s older sister and younger nieces were slashed with knives, then released after negotiations with police. But the mob went on to torture the former teacher, in her 40s, and then publicly cut off her head.
The sickening and heinous act is one of many horrific similar stories coming out from the island, often considered a paradise in the Pacific.
In February a young woman was stripped by angry armed villages, tied up and burnt alive. Her crime? Allegedly more black magic.
The beautiful tropical island, which was only discovered by the western world in the 1930s, is a complex mix of ancient tribes and western industrial influences, from the gold rush period and more recently, mining.
But for tribes people still living by ancient social rules, violence, as opposed to dialogue, is the most common means of problem solving.
Speaking to the Mail Online, Dr Nina Rajani, a former Medicines Sans Frontières volunteer who worked in a hospital clinic in Papua New Guinea, said violence was so bad, she was unable to leave her house at night.
‘Violence is a huge problem out there. Almost every case that came to the hospital A&E department was to do with violence. Whenever there was a disagreement it wasn’t verbal, it was always physical; that’s how they dealt with things because it’s a tribal culture.’
Brighton-based GP, Dr Rajani, who helped run a clinic for victims of domestic and sexual violence, said she was aware of the strong belief in sorcery, which was systemic in the local society.
She said: ‘The guard to our house told me his brother and his brother’s friend had been killed by a lightening bolt while playing rugby in a big field.
‘He said all the people in the village had gone on a witch hunt to find out who in the village had caused the lightening bolt to kill his brother – they said it was sorcery.’
This was typical of village behaviour in the highlands of Papua New Guinea – far from the idyllic and more developed southern tourist resorts. The idea of ‘pay-back’ is and engrained principle in the local culture.
But with the introduction of western consumption, and products such as televisions and branded clothes, there is now even more for the tribes to fight over.