CNN, September 6, 2002 Posted: 7:34 AM HKT (2334 GMT)
Homemade bomb kills three in Ambon
JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) -- A homemade bomb has exploded in a sports
stadium in the violence-ravaged town of Ambon in eastern Indonesia, killing
three girls and injuring eight other people, police and witnesses said.
Most of the victims in the blast at Ambon's main Merdeka Stadium Thursday were
believed to be senior and junior high school students who were training for a coming
regional sports event, Lt. Col. Noviantoro, chief of the local police, told Associated
Press.
"All the three dead victims were young girls aged between 14 and 17," Noviantoro
said.
He said the blast was caused by a homemade bomb.
Witnesses said a woman was taken by police for interrogation, which Noviantoro
would neither confirm nor deny.
Ambon, about 2,600 kilometers (1,600 miles) east of Jakarta, is the provincial capital
of Maluku, where three years of fighting between Christians and Muslims has killed
9,000 people.
Sporadic violence has continued despite a February peace accord. In July, a bomb
blast ripped through a crowded market, injuring 53 people.
Maluku, an archipelago, was known as the Spice Islands during Dutch colonial times.
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