PNG police said the pair,
both aged 31, were on the Kokoda Track which runs through the jungles of the
island state off Australia’s north-eastern tip when they were attacked and
stripped of their belongings including mobile phones, shoes, backpacks and
15,000 kina (US$5,000) in cash.
“Two expatriate tourists, a
male and a female, both 31, were trekking the Kokoda Track and heading towards
Templeton Two (a campsite) when they were ambushed by armed men,” local
assistant Police Commissioner Sylvester Kalaut told The National newspaper of
the Monday ambush.
“The male trekker was tied
to a tree and the female tracker was repeatedly raped before three of her
fingers were chopped. The incident took place for an hour before they
(trekkers) were set free.”
The American woman hiking
in Papua New Guinea with her London-based boyfriend was gang-raped and three of
her fingers slashed in a brutal attack along a famous World War II trail, a
report said Wednesday.
Police described the attack
as a gang-rape and told the newspaper at least two suspects carrying bush
knives and spears were involved. One of them was being held by villagers, The
National added, which identified the tourists as American and London-based.
The couple fled to a
village and were taken to the lawless Pacific island’s capital Port Moresby,
where they were given medical attention.
Australia’s Department of
Foreign Affairs confirmed the attack and added that the couple were hiking
without a licensed tour operator.
There are endemic levels of
domestic violence against women in the Pacific region, with a 2013 United
Nations study finding that 80 percent of men surveyed in PNG reported
physically or sexually abusing their partners.
Two years ago, a US
academic was gang-raped by an armed mob in the country while conducting
research on birds and the impact of climate change in a remote forest on Karkar
Island in Madang province.
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