Multiple sources, including PNG officials, have told the ABC they believe the sexual assaults were carried out by the same bandits who held an Australian professor and three Papua New Guinean women hostage in February. The survivors have since been medically examined at a health centre in the province. Jane said when the village elders caught up with the group the following morning, the gang took her and the hostages back to Walagu, but they continued to hold them for days while a ransom was being negotiated.Īfter a payment in cash and pigs, the women were let go and the gang moved on. "They hit us with bush knives and sticks and raped us and did so many things." "They took us into the jungle, they gave us their bags to carry," Jane said. One was a young mother who had her newborn with her.įive of those taken were teenagers attending the local school - some were as young as 12.įrom there, an unimaginable nightmare unfolded for the women and girls. Jane said she was led to the church, where about a dozen women and girls from the village were being held. "Three of them came into the house, one of them took me." "We thought they were our relatives," Jane told the ABC. Warning: This story contains details of kidnapping and rape.Ī young woman, who the ABC is choosing to call Jane, said she opened the door assuming a loved one had come to visit.
A few hours after nightfall in the remote Southern Highlands village of Walagu in Papua New Guinea, a gang of armed men moved in and began knocking on doors.
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