Tonga Police are investigating the homicide death of a young man who died in a machete attack in a village hall in Vava‘u. 

Police reported that the 23-year-old was hacked to death while watching television at Tu'anuku on April 3.

Deputy Commissioner Community Policing, A. K. Soakai, said that it was the first such savage attack for a number of years. She said that the victim was among a group of men who had just returned home after working in their plantations. They were at the village hall watching television when a 40-year-old man allegedly attacked the young man with the bush knife. He died on the spot.

The attacker remains under police custody, and the motive for the attack had yet to be established.

Suicide

Police reported that a 14-year-old girl was found hanging at her home at Veitongo on April 1. The motive for the suspected suicide had not been confirmed.

The Veitongo suicide is the first one for this year. There was no suicide in Tonga at this time last year.

Stolen goods recovered

During the last week of March five young men from Pahu were arrested and charged with housebreaking, after stolen properties, including laptop computers, a gas cylinder, flat screen, extension cord and bolt cutters were seized from their premises. The stolen goods were identified to have been stolen from a Chinese home and the Loumaile Lodge.

Illegal fishing

Six people were also arrested for illegal fishing, two in the island of Tungua, Ha'apai, and four in Mu'a, Tongatapu. One of the two fishermen who were arrested in Ha'apai was a foreign fisherman.

No road deaths

So far this year there has been no road deaths; at the same time last year, one road death was reported.