Over 50 prisoners escape in Papua New Guinea
Over 50 prisoners escape in Papua New Guinea
In Papua New Guinea more than 50 prisoners escaped from jail after wardens failed to show up for work and police were busy guarding a rugby match, officials told AFP.
The prisoners fled from Bomana Correctional Institution near Port Moresby on Sunday and most of the 54 inmates who escaped by making a hole in a steel fence around their cell block are still at large.
"We've got about 50 still on the run," the official told AFP, adding four had been recaptured.
"The situation is still tense there," he said.
The prison’s wardens, who are involved in a pay dispute, had not appeared for work and the breakout was not discovered for “some hours.”
The police commander Chief Superintendent Fred Yakasa told The National newspaper that the rugby match between Papua New Guinean prime minister's XIII and Australian prime minister's XIII in Port Moresby had left his officers unable to respond quickly.
"We were tied up at a security operation at the rugby league ground, and could not do much," Yakasa told the newspaper.
The prison official was unable to say what offences the escapees in the prison housing some 600 to 700 prisoners had been charged with but said that 22 had been convicted.
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