Canada News, Sunday, April 28, 2002
Attack on Christians in Indonesia leaves 12 dead, including
stabbed baby
Canadian Press
JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) - A mob in military fatigues attacked a Christian
neighbourhood in the religiously divided city of Ambon on Sunday killing 12 people,
witnesses said. It was the worst violence since a fragile peace was forged earlier this
year in the region.
The killings - by unknown assailants wearing black masks and carrying homemade
bombs and daggers- threatens to destroy the peace pact which was signed in
February between warring Christians and Muslims. Three years of bloodshed left at
least 9,000 dead.
The killings came two days after the commander of a militant Muslim group rejected
the peace deal.
Witnesses said about a dozen people attacked Soya village, on Ambon's outskirts,
around 4 a.m. local time, setting 30 homes and a Protestant church ablaze, a witness
said. They stabbed six Christians to death, including a six-month-old baby, he said.
Six others were killed in the fires.
He said it was unclear who the attackers were.
"The scene is horrible," said the witnesses, who arrived at the scene Sunday morning,
on condition of anonymity. "I saw six bodies burned so badly you couldn't recognize
them."
He said police were continuing to search the burned-out homes for more bodies. But
police refused to comment on the attack, including who might be behind it.
Tensions have run high in Ambon since the mostly Christian Maluku Sovereignty
Front celebrated the 52nd anniversary of a failed independence bid Thursday.
The group flew its independence flags angering Muslims who responded by burning
down a partially rebuilt church.
Jafar Umar Thalib, the commander of the Islamic militant group Laskar Jihad
responded to the independence bid by urging his followers on Friday to ignore the
peace deal.
Ambon is the capital of Maluku province, 2,600 kilometres east of Jakarta.
© Copyright 2002 The Canadian Press
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