AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, Monday December 3, 2001 12:42 PM
Attacks on Christian villages force 13,000 to flee in Indonesia's
Sulawesi
JAKARTA, Dec 3 (AFP) - Armed Muslim groups have burnt down six Christian villages
in Indonesia's Central Sulawesi province and forced some 13,000 people to flee, a
church official said Monday.
The residents were evacuated to other villages or fled into the forest after Muslim
groups attacked and razed the villages in the area around the town of Poso in
Thursday, the Reverend Erna Makarensi told AFP from the provincial capital of Palu.
Reports have said at least seven people were killed in fighting over several days last
week, including two of the attackers.
Four soldiers were wounded, two of them critically, during clashes between troops
and the Muslim groups in the area on Saturday evening and early Sunday, a hospital
nurse and police said.
Makarensi said she herself helped evacuate people from the villages.
"There were no security personnel in the area on the day of the attack and the
evacuation was fully assisted by the churches," Makarensi said, adding that some
400 soldiers and police have since been deployed in the Poso area.
She said the villages of Betalemba, Patiwunga, Tangkura, Padalembara, Dewua and
Sanginora had now been completely burnt down.
About 300 extra police -- including 200 from Jakarta -- were sent to the area on Friday
and Saturday, a provincial police spokesman said.
Adjunct Senior Commissioner Agus Sugianto said the military sent two companies
(about 200 men) from Gorontalo in North Sulawesi to Poso on Sunday.
A police officer at the Poso district office, Fa Aslin, said there had been no new
clashes between troops and Muslim gangs since Sunday morning.
A nurse at the local hospital said one soldier was shot in the head and another in the
stomach.
Poso has been the scene of almost two years of sectarian fighting between Muslims
and Christians in which more than 300 people have died.
Michael Elmquist, deputy United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator, said Tuesday
that a recent mission to the province had found an "extremely tense" situation, with a
"depth of hatred" between Christians and Muslims.
He said up to 7,000 members of Laskar Jihad -- a Java-based armed Islamic group
which has waged a "jihad" (holy war) against Christians in the Malukus -- had moved
to Poso to continue their battle.
Reports from the Vatican quoted the Bishop of Manado in North Sulawesi, Joseph
Suwatan, as saying that as many as 50,000 Christians had fled their homes. He
could not immediately be reached for confirmation.
The Koran Tempo daily said that among the refugees were 1,300 Balinese settlers in
the villages which were attacked. They were taken to Tolai, another Balinese
settlement in the neighbouring district of Donggala.
Copyright © 2001 AFP. All rights reserved.
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