However, Local MP Nixon Mangape said the razing had left members of the Tiene tribe – the landowners of Barrick Gold’s Porgera mine – homeless for a second time in six years.
 
Mangape and several local leaders stated that more than 200 houses, some of them permanent structures, were burnt to the ground in the village of Wingima during an early morning raid on Friday, local paper The Post Courier reported.
 
Security forces reportedly arrived at Wingima village from three different directions at around 5am and began burning huts while occupants were still sleeping.
 
The raid apparently was motivated by claims that there had been illegal miners living in the homes, which were part of the permanent Wingima settlement for the Tiene people.
 
PNG police sources contradict Mangape’s statement and said that only 20 houses built from bush materials were burnt.
 
Two arrests were made but most of the illegal miners fled into the mountain ravines, leaving only genuine landowners behind.
 
Heightened levels of illegal mining, crime and inter-tribal fighting triggered the launch of a police and army taskforce in April to patrol around the Porgera minesite and surrounding settlements.
 
Mangape alleges the police were in part doing the bidding of mine owner Barrick Gold by cracking down on illegal miners, but he said the actions were not right as it left thousands of families homeless. He has called for Barrick to relocate the special mining lease landowners immediately.
 
“This is the second time this village was burnt down,” he said.
 
“The first one was done during the first state of emergency call out operation some six years ago, which never solved the problem.
 
“Why is Barrick not looking at long term solutions like relocating the people out of the special mining lease area?
 
“Burning houses in a particular village in the special mining lease area will not solve the illegal mining problem. It’s adding more fuel to a burning fire."
 
An Australian man trying to take pictures of the burning houses was attacked and injured by angry locals. His current condition is not known.
 
In February, the Porgera Landowners Association blamed the PNG government for the influx of as many as 396 illegal miners a day at the site.
 
“The increase in illegal activities at the Porgera minesite is a by-product of ignorance over many years and a refusal to address the problem proactively,” PLOA chairman Tony Mark Ekepa said.
 
“The state should not overreact to [an] increase in illegal mining activity by deploying mobile police to control the situation. It is a problem that needs to be eliminated at the root.”
 
In late April, the PNG government declared a three-month state of emergency in Porgera and deployed more than 150 police and troops to the area.