The Jakarta Post, 4/14/2004 1:15:48 PM
Police make door-to-door searches for weapons in restive Poso
JAKARTA (AFP): Hundreds of police were Wednesday searching door-to-door for
weapons in their hunt for attackers targeting Christians in the religiously-mixed Poso
district of Central Sulawesi.
"We have mobilised almost the entire police force in the district since yesterday to
begin to comb the district for weapons, and if possible, the attackers of the church in
Poso Pesisir subdistrict last weekend," district police chief Abdi Dharma Sitepu told
AFP.
He said 200 paramilitary police reinforcements, who were sent from Jakarta on
Monday after an Easter weekend attack on a church, were taking part.
Sitepu said local residents were being asked to help locate weapons caches in the
district, where more than 1,000 people were killed in clashes between Muslims and
Christians in 2000-2001.
Late on Saturday at least one gunman sprayed bullets into a church where
worshippers were holding a choir practice. Seven people including a four-year-old girl
were wounded.
Sitepu said an M-16 automatic rifle was used and up to three people may have been
involved in the attack. On Wednesday six of the injured were still in intensive care in
hospital.
The church attack was the fourth on Christians in two weeks in the district. Earlier, a
Christian minister was shot dead in front of his wife. Another man was killed and a
female university lecturer was injured.
The government brokered a peace deal in December 2001 but sporadic violence
continued.
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