REUTERS, Thursday September 05, 2002 07:08 AM ET
Explosion Kills Three in Indonesia's Ambon City
AMBON, Indonesia (Reuters) - A home-made bomb killed three young women in the
Indonesian city of Ambon in the strife-torn Moluccas islands Thursday, police said.
There was no immediate clue as to who planted the bomb near a sports field used by
the region's rival Muslim and Christian communities.
"Three people died of shrapnel wounds. All of them were women. All of them were
young," Lieutenant Victor Hattu from the Moluccas police said.
Witnesses and officials said the bomb also wounded at least three other people.
Ambon, some 1,400 miles east of Jakarta, is the major hub in the Moluccas islands,
where a wave of clashes between Muslims and Christians has claimed more than
5,000 lives since early 1999.
Both sides signed a peace deal in February but tension remains high and there has
been sporadic violence.
Civil emergency status -- one level down from martial law -- is still in place in the
once-scenic archipelago in the east of the world's most populous Muslim nation.
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