Radio New Zealand - Te Reo Irirangi o Aotearoa

PNG’s Oro Province limits access to yeast to try and curb deadly violence

Posted at 08:21 on 25 September, 2012 UTC

The administration in Papua New Guinea’s Oro province hopes a greater police presence, as well as clamps on the sale of alcohol and the production of homebrew, will curb violence that has claimed six lives in six weeks.

The Oro provincial administrator, Owen Awaita, says there’s been a surge in the production of homebrewed beer and this has sparked the violence leading to the deaths.

He says there have been several students among those killed.

Mr Awaita says the police mobile squad is being flown in to boost local police numbers and there will be clamps on the sale of alcohol.

But he says a key aim is to strictly limit the sale of yeast which is a key component in the homebrew.

“The bakeries are the only ones allowed to have yeast, but then it will be under very, very strict control. It will be managed by the top management so that they don’t let it land in the wrong hands.”