Two women have been tortured for three days and then beheaded in a remote village in Papua New Guinea after being accused of witchcraft.
A team of police rushed to the scene - but were forced to stand by and watch the victims being decapitated with axes as locals refused to let them come to their aid.
A large crowd kept the police at bay within sight of the clearing where the women were lying trussed up on the ground.
Villagers on the island of Bougainville ignored orders to let them go, and instead set about them with axes and knives.
Villagers: Residents of the island of Bougainville have executed two women for witchcraft (other locals are pictured in this file photo)
The women, from the village of Tandorima, were accused of using sorcery to kill a popular schoolteacher who died a few weeks ago.
'We couldn't do anything to help these two women,' said Central Bougainville police chief Herman Birengka.
'My men were threatened when they went to the area to negotiate the release of the women. We were helpless. We couldn't do anything to help them because of the threats made against us.'
He said the mob had burned down houses in the women's village, forcing their relatives to flee into the jungle.
'These killings were both barbaric and senseless,' Mr Birengka said.
The gruesome murders follow a number of sorcery-related killings on the Papua New Guinea mainland, mostly in remote highland villages.
Remote: The killings happened in a small village located on the island of Bougainville
Earlier this year a young woman accused of being a witch and causing the death of a young boy was dragged to a rubbish dump and burned alive, with police once again unable to help because of threats by the crowd.
'I wish we could have helped these two women,' said Mr Birengka in a reference to the latest killings.
'But the villagers who had kidnapped the women were armed with five high-powered firearms, knives and axes.'
He told the Post Courier newspaper that the two women were attacked at their village homes at night and taken to the nearby village of Lopele, where the mob accused them of practicing sorcery and bringing about the death of the teacher.
They were tortured for three days and nights, receiving numerous knife wounds, before being dragged out to a clearing to face execution.
Learning of the imminent murders, police desperately tried to bring in mediators, but all efforts to prevent the deaths failed.
'We did not want to resort to force as the whole situation could have turned nasty with more lives at stake,' Mr Birengka said.
'Even so, I'm disgusted with my officers for failing to find a way of stopping these people who showed utter disregard to law and justice.
'While they might well have been threatened, those police should have tried harder from the very beginning.'
