Two dead, two injured

By ANTOINETTE POIVI, DYLAN MURRAY and REBECCA KUKU
TWO soldiers are dead and one is fighting for his life after a Papua New Guinea Defence Force training exercise went terribly wrong yesterday.
A civilian was also wounded in the early hours in a field exercise for a corporal qualifying course in Kupiano, Central.
Apparently, live ammunition instead of blanks was used, resulting in the fatalities and wounding.
Use of live ammunition is not standard operating procedure in any training and used only under very exceptional circumstances, according the former Defence Force Commander Jerry Singirok.
Defence Minister Win Bakri Daki confirmed the incident and said the shooting took place at around 4am yesterday.
Daki said two others were also injured, a soldier and a civilian who had since been evacuated to the Port Moresby General Hospital.
“The families have been informed and details of the service personnel will be released once all internal protocol requirements for members killed in action are done,” he said.
He said an investigation team from the Royal Papua New Guinea Constabulary was dispatched to the site with the military police to investigate the incident.
“And a high level PNGDF investigation team has been tasked to conduct an internal investigation,” he added.
Daki said PNGDF was ensuring that it continued to provide the duty of care to the families of the deceased and wounded members during this time.
“I convey my sincere condolences to the families of the deceased members and my assurances to those wounded that their recovery will have our support priority.
“The Chief of Defence Force will provide more details during a press briefing tomorrow afternoon,” he said.

A member of PNGDF told The National they were doing the final part of the course, where they were supposed to fight through enemy lines before withdrawing and concluding with a parade when the incident happened.
“There was probably a breach in safety and protocol and blank bullets were replaced with live ammunitions, two of our men were killed in a ‘blue on blue fire’, one was injured and a civilian was also injured,” he said.
Meanwhile, Central police Commander John Midi said NCD and Central forensics and homicide teams were investigating the shooting.
The wounded soldier and civilian were rushed to Kupiano Hospital and have been evacuated to Port Moresby.
A witness, who asked not to be named, said: “I was there when they took the bodies of the two dead soldiers to the hospital.
He said the people at Kupiano Station were informed about a PNGDF exercise was to be held at the Kupiano Secondary School field on Monday around 5pm.
“The field is about 100 metres from the hospital gates,” he said.
“We could hear the sound of gunfire in the early hours of the morning until around 5am.”
Kupiano Hospital’s Dr Laiam Kirauconfirmed a helicopter evacuated the bodies of the two soldiers, the injured soldier, as well as the civilian who is allegedly an employee of the RPNGC.
Kirau said the injured were airlifted to the Pacific International Hospital in Port Moresby.