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In the PNG highlands, tribal fighting is no laughing matter.
It is estimated to kill hundreds of people and displace thousands more.
But the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is hoping comedy and drama shows can help educate communities and reduce the devastating impact of tribal conflict.
"The idea of the drama show is basically to bring across humanitarian messages to the population in the highlands," the head of the ICRC mission in the country, Mark Kessler, said.
The shows are tailored for their audiences and often use local performers who speak the local language.
The performers mime shooting and burning villages, interspersed with discussion about what they are doing from a Red Cross facilitator.
"It's participative, so we stop the drama at certain moments so the crowd can help us say what's going wrong," Mr Kessler said.
The performers eventually change their behaviour after the crowd disapproves, with the leader telling his mock fighters: "We will only fight the men, do you understand?"
"Don't you kill any women or children."
It's a vitally-important message, because tribal conflicts have enormous humanitarian consequences in PNG.
"The impact of tribal fighting is huge," Mr Kessler said.
"It's basically hampering or hindering development of infrastructure, education programs, health programs.
"It affects everybody; elderly, kids, women."
The shows are part of the Red Cross' program to introduce humanitarian principles to tribal conflicts, such as not killing civilians and health workers, and not damaging public infrastructure.
Many of the rules are similar to those that people in the highlands used to respect, but they have broken down as guns were introduced and conflicts intensified.
Comedy is also a central component of the shows, with performers mocking drunk people and silly behaviours to the delight of the crowd.
"We do know they love the drama show in a place where there's no internet, no TV and a place where there's not that much happening all day long," Mr Kessler said.
The Red Cross is also providing aid to people displaced by tribal conflict.
It says it can't measure the impact of the drama component of its work, but it believes people are taking notice.
"We do hope that it puts the subject on the plate, that it gets people thinking, it gets people discussing within their families," Mr Kessler said.
Topics: world-politics, unrest-conflict-and-war, non-governmental-organisations, community-and-society, papua-new-guinea, pacific
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