A Papua New Guinean doctor, who is alleged to be covid-19 positive, has been arrested and charged in Solomon Islands for illegally crossing the border.

The doctor, from Bougainville and employed at Nonga Provincial Hospital in East New Britain province, was arrested and charged in the Solomon Islands capital, Honiara, for illegally crossing, authorities from both countries have said.

Solomon Island Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare made reference to the case in a statement he had made, saying the doctor was now being quarantined.

Sogavare had, in his covid-19 update address to Solomon Islands on January 18, said: “…according to our contact tracing information, the index case that brought in the infection to Pelau is a medical doctor from Papua New Guinea who hails from Tasman Island and has traditional ties with the people of Pelau.

“This doctor with nine other people, including members of his family crossed the border illegally from Tasman to come to Paleu on 9th January 2022 and it is quite disturbing that such a highly qualified person a medical doctor, blatantly disregarded our laws, breached our covid-19 regulations, and crossed our border illegally.”

“He has now started a community transmission of covid-19 to his relatives and people in Pelau.

“It is extremely disappointing that the relatives of this doctor in Pelau completely disregarded the instructions from the government to not allow any person from the other side of the border to land at or stay in any of their villages and homes.

“By allowing the doctor to enter the village they have provided the platform to start the community transmission of covid-19 in Pelau.

In this regard the relatives of this doctor have also breached the covid-19 by allowing this doctor and his family to land and stay in Pelau and started the community transmission of covid-19.”

Confirmed by Bougainville
Autonomous Bougainville Government Health Secretary Dr Clement Totavun has confirmed that the doctor, from Tasman Island, works at Nonga Hospital, and travelled to Bougainville during Christmas, got on a ship to Tasman and then on to Pelau in Solomon Islands.

“I have been advised by my covid-19 team that this is true.

“The doctor from Tasman who works at Nonga General Hospital, Rabaul, came here during Christmas and got on the ship to Tasman and on to Pelau,” Dr Totavun said.

“He was arrested by Solomon Island police for crossing the border, which is currently closed, and is currently in Honiara. Doctors at Honiara Hospital have contacted our CEO Buka Hospital and confirmed.

“I have alerted our surveillance team to check out Tasman in the coming week as the virus might be spreading there,” Dr Totavun said.

Buka Hospital chief executive officer Dr Tommy Wotsia told the Post-Courier he was advised of the reports.

Traditional border crossing banned
Traditional border crossing between Bougainville and Solomon Islands has been banned since November last year following claims that Bougainvilleans had been smuggling arms into that country to arm and train Malaita islanders seeking to overthrow the Sogavare government.

Bougainville Police Commissioner Francis Tokura said he confirmed with Solomon Islands police about the incident but could not elaborate further.

Nonga Hospital chief executive officer Dr Ako Yap and his deputy Dr Patrick Kiromat also confirmed the doctor was working with them and had been on holiday since December.

They said they had not been officially notified of the incident involving the doctor in Honiara but said he was due to return to work soon.

Gorethy Kenneth is a senior journalist on the PNG Post-Courier. Republished with permission.

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Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare has appealed to his fellow Solomon Islanders at the western border not to allow Bougainvilleans into the country.

In his nation’s address last Friday, Sogavare recapped the country’s first covid-19 case recorded from a Shortland islander, dropped off by four Bougainvilleans in Shortland, who was automatically tested positive and is still in a 14-day quarantine with his seven family members who also tested positive.

The four Bougainvilleans returned home the same day and are back in their respective villages.

Sogavare singled out the New Year delta and omicron cases recorded in Solomon Islands which were brought in by citizens returning from outside Honiara.

“The western border continues to be an area of priority for health,” he said.

“For the Royal Solomon Islands Police Force and other border force agencies, it represents a potential source of covid-19 incursion into the country.

“For example, on New Year’s Day, a man from the Shortlands travelled with four Bougainville nationals from Bougainville to Shortland.

“The four Bougainvilleans returned straight after dropping off the man.

In quarantine facility at Nila
“The man is now held at the quarantine facility in Nila along with seven of his family members with whom he had made close contact.

“They will undergo 14 days of quarantine and only released if all tests results are returned negative.

“Five who had been held at the Nila isolation ward at Shortlands will be released after serving 14 days if their results return negative.

“These five individuals have made close contact with people from Bougainville.

“My good people, living along the western border, I ask you to refrain from going across the border to Bougainville.

“I also ask you to not allow any visitors from Bougainville to your villages during the period of the State of Emergency. Please continue to be vigilant to prevent the entry of covid-19 through our western border.”

ABG health chief ‘not aware’
Autonomous Bougainville Government (ABG) Health Secretary Dr Clement Totavun told the Post-Courier they were not aware of the incident singled out by Sogavare but also said the border had been closed since 2020 when the covid initial measures were released and PNG Immigration and other border offices had ordered immediate closure.

“There is currently a ban on traditional border crossing,” he said.

“The border is closed.

“The Border Protection Authority is supposed to man the border but surveillance at the moment is not effective.”

He said he would communicate with National Pandemic Controller David Manning on this issue.

Gorethy Kenneth is a senior PNG Post-Courier journalist. Republished with permission.

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The West Sepik administration is not happy with the way illegal border crossers are being handled by the Indonesian and Papua New Guinean consular officials in Jayapura amid the worsening covid pandemic crisis.

Administrator Conrad Tilau said the provincial administration had now withdrawn its support and involvement in anything to do with border crossers due to the hike in covid-19 pandemic cases in the province.

He said the total covid-19 cases in West Sepik had increased to 336 and it was a concern for the provincial administration.

Tilau said the border crossing was one transmission pathway and the provincial administration was concerned that an isolation centre had not been established in the province.

He said the issue of border crossing was a major concern for his administration, particularly with the surge in the covid-19 cases, and illegal activities along the border.

Tilau said the border crossing into Indonesia was an illegal activity that needed Indonesian authorities to deal with them using their laws instead of sending perpetrators back to Papua New Guinea and creating more problems.

“Border crossing is still going on unnoticed and those crossers are conducting illegal activities and they should be subject to the Indonesian laws,” he said.

‘Poses more risk to PNG’
“For the PNG Consular [officials] in Jayapura to send back those illegal border crossers poses more risk to the country.

“They are illegally in Indonesia so they should be subject to Indonesian laws instead of deporting them to PNG and creating more problems like the increase in covid-19 pandemic cases.”

Tilau said the provincial administration was involved in the exercise along the border when covid-19 first entered the country in 2020 but since then it had stopped its support.

“When we tested the first case in 2021, we said no repatriation but the consular-general got approval from the Pandemic Controller [Police Commissioner David Manning] to send those people back; we do not have an isolation centre in Vanimo to deal with border crossers infected with covid-19,” he said.

‘Indonesia should help PNG’
“Indonesia should help PNG amid the surge in sovid-19 cases.

“What kind of bilateral relationship is this?

“PNG and Indonesia must cooperate to protect their borders from covid-19 and … illegal activities.

“The provincial government and provincial administration have withdrawn our involvement.”

He urged the national government, through the Pandemic Controller, to fund a covid-19 isolation centre in Vanimo given the surge in infections and movement of people along the border.

Meanwhile, the Pandemic Controller has issued a travel restriction along PNG’s international borders.

Jeffrey Elapa is a PNG Post-Courier reporter.

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The governor of Papua New Guinea’s West Sepik province says people are still defying the official border closure and crossing into Indonesia.

Papua New Guinea closed its border with the neighbouring country three months ago in an effort to stop the spread of the covid-19 coronavirus, of which there has been a surge of cases in Indonesia’s Papua province.

READ MORE: West Papua’s highway of blood – destruction not development

Governor Tony Wouwou said West Sepik acted early, with awareness campaigns and the deployment of a rapid response team, to implement public restrictions.

But he said there were still not enough security forces to stop people, particularly PNG vanilla traders, crossing the border through the jungle.

“In the sea as well too. Normally they go through at night time to do their vanilla trading,” he said.

“Though we have personnel staying in Vanimo – Defence Force and police – we still don’t have enough man forces to ensure we secure our borders.”

Dozens stranded in Jayapura
Meanwhile, dozens of Papua New Guinean citizens stranded in neighbouring Indonesia were waiting approval from the Emergency Controller to be repatriated.

Up to 120 citizens, mainly people recently released from prison, had been stuck for weeks in Jayapura, the capital of the Indonesian-administered Papua province, pending permission to be transferred by authorities across the nearby border to PNG’s West Sepik province

Governor Wouwou said the stranded PNG citizens were still waiting for the PNG Controller, Police Commissioner David Manning, to give the green light for them to cross the border.

“So that is what we are looking for now, waiting for him to give his approval. Once we have approval in order, then we might as well ask the Indonesian government to bring them across to the border and we’ll pick them up from there,” Wouwou said.

“By next week, we should be done,” he said, adding that it was expected that Indonesian health officials would only allow the PNG citizens to cross the border after clearing tests for covid-19.

On the PNG side, they were expected to go into mandatory 14-day quarantine in Vanimo.

Wouwou said that they would be quarantined in two houses, with the group coming across in smaller groups over staggered phases to prevent overcrowding.

While provincial resources were stretched to cope with the exercise, Wouwou said West Sepik was waiting on funding from PNG’s national government.

• This article is republished by the Pacific Media Centre under a partnership agreement with RNZ.
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Pacific Media Watch

Police in Papua New Guinea have arrested nine alleged illegal border crossers and quarantined them in Vanimo, reports RNZ Pacific.

The arrests came as East Sepik Governor Allan Bird called for “shoot to kill’ orders for illegal border crossers and a military control of areas along the border between Papua New Guinea and Indonesia, reports the PNG Post-Courier.

The newspaper The National reports three Indonesians from Papua and six vanilla sellers from PNG’s East Sepik province had crossed the border from Indonesia

READ MORE: Al Jazeera coronavirus live updates – Global cases surpass 900,000

They were arrested and then placed in 14 days of quarantine by the West Sepik provincial health authority.

The land border between PNG and Indonesia has been closed since late January due in an attempt to prevent the spread of Covid-19.

The West Sepik police commander, Chief Inspector Moses Ibsagi, said the illegal border crossers were not taking heed of the national government’s warning on the dangers of Covid-19.

Mr Ibsagi said the vanilla traders in particular, who had just returned from selling their beans in Jayapura, were more concerned about money than the lives of eight million people of PNG.

Confirmed cases in Jayapura
With several confirmed cases of Covid-19 in Jayapura, and likely more unreported cases, the provincial police commander is concerned about the virus spreading via the PNG kina bank notes which the traders obtained in Jayapura.

He warned that when the money was brought back to PNG, it could circulate through buying and selling of goods or services, helping the virus to easily spread among local people.

Meanwhile, in a statement yesterday, East Sepik Governor Allan Bird called for a “shoot to kill” policy.

“I have a disturbing report that people are still crossing the border from Indonesia into my province. Even as of l[Sunday night] five people came in a speed boat and three people the previous night,” Bird said.

“I am asking if a special order can be made and our border districts be placed under military control.

“I want the military to be given shoot to kill orders. East Sepik has no hospital facilities. We are only operating out of makeshift shelters. We can’t cope.”

Bird said the East Sepik province had so far 37 people of interest and all of them had come across from Indonesia.

‘Massive infections’
“I understand Indonesians who are frightened by the massive infections on that side could be crossing the borders to run away from the disease. If that happens, we are finished.

“I have been raising concerns about this border for more than two months. Nobody listened to my concerns.

“I am raising a new threat from the border which I see coming. They could already be moving across as I speak.

“Leaders we must take this decision to save our people.”

Bird is expected to raise the same issue when Parliament meets today to introduce the Emergency Bill to give legal effect to the state-of-emergency and also to introduce a supplementary budget containing a stimulus package containing relief during the emergency period.

Prime Minister James Marape has also given assurance that the police and military presence would be beefed up along the border provinces of West Sepik and Western.

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