June 08, 2016

Four students shot dead during anti-corruption protest in Papua New Guinea

located:	Papua New Guinea
editor:	Vanessa Ellingham

Four students have been reported dead after police fired directly into a crowd of protestors in the capital Port Moresby as long-running anti-corruption protests suddenly turned violent.

Opposition MPs told parliament that four students had been killed and seven injured in the incident on Wednesday, but the government insisted the demonstrators were only injured and that police only fired warning shots.

Students on the campus of the University of Papua New Guinea had been protesting and boycotting classes for five weeks, demanding that the prime minister, Peter O’Neill, resign over corruption allegations that have dogged his government for two years.

But the peaceful on-campus protests erupted into violence when armed police prevented students from boarding buses to take them to parliament house early on Wednesday.

The police then fired at the crowd and officers reportedly moved in to arrest the president of the student union, Kenneth Rapa.

Prime Minister O’Neill has denied that any students were killed, saying that only five had been injured.

He said the “blood of the injured students” was on the hands of politicians and “criminal elements” who had supported the protests, and that students who had spent weeks protesting for his resignation would now have to “face the consequences of their low grades”.

A warrant for O’Neill’s arrest on corruption charges was issued in 2014, but the prime minister has dodged questioning and arrest since then. PNG police’s anti-corruption unit was shut down earlier this year, just as it was set to question O’Neill, before a judge ordered it be reopened.

The parliament, which was due to reopen today, has now been adjourned until August.

Businesses and schools have closed to mourn the loss of the students, as seen in the image above.