The New York Times, Sunday April 25, 2004 8:34 a.m. ET
At Least 10 Killed in Clashes in Indonesia
By REUTERS
AMBON, Indonesia (Reuters) - At least 10 people were killed and a church and U.N.
office torched Sunday as Muslim and Christian residents of the eastern Indonesian
city of Ambon fought pitched street battles, witnesses and police said.
Nearly 90 people were hurt as groups rampaged through the provincial capital of the
Moluccas province in the worst day of violence since factions signed a peace deal in
February 2002.
Gunfire and explosions were heard in the city and thick black smoke billowed into the
air. It was not clear who was firing as the mobs were mostly using stones and knives.
"The victims are 98 in total, 10 of whom are dead. The number of victims could
change,'' Moluccas provincial police chief Brigadier-General Bambang Sutrisno told
Reuters by telephone. He did not say how the victims had died.
"The situation is under control now and we are tightening security. Police and soldiers
will stay out in the field overnight. We have to investigate how this could happen.''
Thousands of people were killed in the Moluccas during nearly three years of
sectarian conflict before the 2002 peace deal. The central government of the world's
most populous Muslim nation lifted civil emergency curbs in the Moluccas only last
year.
Sunday's clashes began after police arrested and then released a number of people
for trying to raise the banned flag of a little known and mostly Christian rebel group,
the South Moluccas Republic movement.
Novi Pinontuan, editor of the Suara Maluku newspaper in Ambon, told Reuters he had
seen a church and a local U.N. coordinating office in flames and that hundreds of
people rampaged through parts of the city.
"The office and four U.N. cars were in flames,'' he said.
Caroline Tupamahu, the United Nations Development Program officer in charge in
Ambon, said no staff had been hurt and only two local security guards had been at
the office.
Residents said police fired shots in the air in an effort to break up the clashes.
Some 85 percent of Indonesia's 220 million people are Muslim. In some eastern
areas, however, the Christian and Muslim populations are about equal in size.
Copyright © 2004 The New York Times Company.
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