The Kuia's family home last week Thursday could have been their father’s murder scene. The corrugated iron fence was the only thing standing between their father and armed car thieves who tried to shoot him in the head.
Sarah Kuia, the daughter, is relieved that her father is alive. Her street has become hostile over the last twenty years.
The road connecting to her street is Boundary Road and the Maiba Corner, a known hot spot for bag snatching and stabbings, is just a hundred meters up the road.
“We have lived here for the last twenty years and we have seen a lot happen,” she said. “The shooters were out on the road at around 6 in the morning; they had held up the daughter of a police mobile squad member with her husband.”
The criminals were making a getaway when the last of them ran past the girl’s father with a gun. The boy greeted the father before he pointed the homemade gun at his head and pulled the trigger.
Police arrived an hour later but witnesses say they didn’t pursue. Today, the father Wata Kuia is at work with the Morobe provincial government. He is still traumatized by the ordeal.
“We are falling victim to crime at Boundary Road,” he said. Whilst foreign investments pour into Lae city, crime hasn’t slowed, and often, crimes are denounced as petty but the economic impact is a concern.
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