PORT MORESBY – A woman who was saved from being killed in a sorcery-related attack in Papua New Guinea’s Highlands earlier this year has reportedly been hacked to death by a group of men.

The victim, identified only as Misila, was one of three women saved by missionaries and police in January after being accused of practising sorcery.

Lutheran missionary Anton Lutz said she was murdered last week by angry villagers who accused her of witchcraft after a measles epidemic killed several people in Enga province late last year.

“What we’re hearing is that on Monday about 10 men came and axed her while she was with her family,” he said.

“Her family was helpless to do anything and she died.

“So far we’ve heard that her family is not seeking to retaliate against this group that came and killed her. They are hoping that the police will be able to apprehend them and seek justice another way.”

Lutz was one of several missionaries who joined with police to protect Misila and three others earlier this year.

“Her family was helpless to do anything and she died,” he said. “They are hoping that the police will be able to apprehend them and seek justice another way.”

The woman was accused of being a witch by a witch-finder, known as a ‘glassmeri’, who was paid by villagers to identify the believed source of the measles outbreak.

Enga province’s police deputy commander Epenes Nili said the so-called “witch-finder”, who had made the allegations against three women, publicly withdrew them.

The villagers agreed to perform a ‘stone-turning’ ceremony in which they turned over stones to indicate that they would no longer make accusations of witchcraft.

Law reforms in Papua New Guinea mean that any black magic killing is now treated as murder and punishable by death. However, beliefs about sorcery continue to spread and there are increasing reports of violence against women in many remote parts of the country.

Lutz said villagers in the area felt “helpless” after the latest sorcery killing.

“How can this community that has no phone access, no road access, limited airstrip access and really no radio access, defend themselves against a stronger group of people that wants to murder them one by one?” he said.

“It’s related to the beliefs about this spiritual being that lives inside of people – it’s a very specific ancestral belief that this group has about all sickness and death being the result of these spirit-beings that live inside of mostly women and their children.

“So as their children grow up they will also be at threat of being murdered as well.”

Human rights groups have long called for greater efforts to end sorcery murders and protect women.

The country has one of the world’s worst rates of violence against women, with officials saying that up to 68 per cent of women have suffered violence and a third have been raped.

Human Rights Watch said in January that Papua New Guinea was “one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a woman”.

“Women in Papua New Guinea face violence at every turn,” said Elaine Pearson, the organisation’s Australia director.

“The shocking reality is that the majority of women in Papua New Guinea will experience rape or physical assault in their lifetime, while the government fails to bring justice for victims.”

Two years ago, Papua New Guinea repealed 1971 laws which allowed people accused of murder or serious assault to rely on a victim’s practice of sorcery as a defence.

Despite the changes, experts and rights groups said women continue to be subject to increasingly brutal attacks.

“In the highlands there are lots of instances where people will talk about how witchcraft has spread to an area where it wasn’t previously,” Richard Eves, an expert on Papua New Guinea culture at the Australian National University, told ABC News last year. “There’s been a real failure by the state to follow through on some of these arrests in a number of situations. It doesn’t really help, it basically means people are acting with impunity.”