Agence France-Presse, Mon, May 24, 2004
Bombing at Christian market in Indonesia's Ambon city injures
nine
AMBON, Indonesia (AFP) - A bomb injured nine people in the Christian sector of
Indonesia's Ambon city and police said they were defusing two other unexploded
devices.
A duty officer at police headquarters said the blast at Batumeja market at around
10:30 am -- the third in the city in three days -- sparked panic among residents and
shoppers.
A nurse at Bakti Rahayu hospital said nine people were injured, three of them
seriously.
City police chief Leonidas Braksan said officers were defusing bombs planted at a
church office and at the tax office in the Christian sector of the divided city, which was
hit by Muslim-Christian battles in recent weeks.
Police were alerted after a worker sweeping the grounds of Maranatha church and the
synod office noticed a mound of freshly dug earth, the Reverend I.J.M. Hendriks told
AFP.
He said members of the bomb squad found a tin containing a bomb buried at the foot
of a flagpole.
Two blasts on Sunday injured five Christians in what national police chief Da'i Bachtiar
described as an attempt to provoke trouble.
Ambon is still recovering from an outbreak of Muslim-Christian violence which began
on April 25. Some 38 people were killed and hundreds of homes and other buildings
were torched.
"It is regrettable that there are still people who want to provoke trouble. But thank
God, people can no longer be easily provoked," Bachtiar said on Monday, adding that
police would start a search for weapons in the city.
Ambon and some other parts of the Maluku islands were ravaged by three years of
sectarian clashes which killed more than 5,000 people before a February 2002 peace
pact took effect.
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