News Interactive [Australia], April 30, 2004
15 injured in religious riots
By Chris Brummitt
MUSLIMS and Christians equipped with homemade bombs and military-issue
weapons clashed in Indonesia's eastern Ambon city today, leaving 15 injured, said
medical officials
It was the sixth straight day of clashes in the provincial capital of the Maluku islands,
leaving scores of houses in flames, according to witnesses.
At least 34 people have been killed, and the clashes have raised fears the region
could plunge back into a Muslim-Christian war that killed 9,000 people three years
ago.
Early on Friday morning fighting broke out in two parts of the city that straddle
Christian and Muslim areas. Gunfire and explosions could be heard most of the night.
Muslim mobs torched at least 30 houses close to a Protestant church, witnesses
said. Most of the homes were empty after their owners had fled when the clashes
began Sunday.
An Associated Press reporter in the area late Thursday saw Christian fighters taking
up positions with automatic weapons and stashes of homemade bombs.
Fifteen Muslims were taken to the city's Al-Fatah hospital with injuries sustained in
the fighting, medical officials there said. There were no immediate reports of Christian
casualties.
Elsewhere, unidentified attackers fired what appeared to be a mortar into a
Muslim-part of the city. The device left a large crater in the ground but caused no
injuries.
"There was a massive bang," said Ahmad Kadas, whose house was damaged in the
blast. "We all ran out in panic."
Authorities have deployed hundreds of reinforcements to the city, but the new security
officers appeared unwilling unable to stop the fighting, which is playing out in the city's
narrow streets and dilapated housing.
In the 1999-2001 conflict, police and soldiers joined in the battles, as did hundreds of
Muslim militants from across Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation,
and elsewhere in Southeast Asia.
Sunday's clashes were triggered after the island's small, mostly separatist Christian
group paraded through the city centre - an act regarded as a provocation by Muslims.
The violence has underscored the fragility of Malukus province, known as the Spice
Islands during Dutch colonial rule and once held up as a model of religious harmony.
Unlike the rest of Indonesia, the province's two million people are evenly divided
between Muslims and Christians.
The Associated Press
Copyright 2004 News Limited. All times AEST (GMT+10).
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