Gunfire and explosions rocked the provincial capital of Ambon yesterday, leaving one dead, 13 wounded and a church in ruins as Christians and Muslims clashed for a fourth day in Indonesia's Maluku islands.
In Jakarta, national police spokesman Colonel Zainuri Lubis said the death toll from the violence had risen to 36 since Sunday. A total of 159 people were injured in that period, he said.
PHOTO: EPA
Shortly after dawn, unidentified assailants launched attacks in several districts of Ambon, with the heaviest fighting in areas that straddle the avenues between the Muslim and Christian communities.
Plumes of smoke could be seen rising from at least two places, and gunfire from snipers positioned atop buildings rang out across the divided city for several hours.
Police and the military were patrolling the streets, and most shops and banks were shut.
Ambon police chief Brigadier General Bambang Sutrisno insisted security was improving in the province, where Muslim-Christian violence three years ago killed 9,000 people.
"We believe things are getting better," he said.
A 22-year-old man was shot dead yesterday. Nine others were taken to a hospital in the Muslim part of town with gunshot wounds or blast injuries, medical orderlies said.
The Nazaret Protestant Church and seven nearby houses in a Christian neighborhood were torched by unidentified assailants just after dawn.
Witnesses said at least four people were injured.
Witnesses also claimed the military stood by as the church and nearby homes were burned down.
"We wanted to get our things from the house but the soldiers shouted `you cannot' and pointed their guns at us," said Jan Lukukay, a 53-year-old school teacher. "Why aren't they protecting us?"
The latest round of violence erupted on Sunday after several members of the region's small, largely Christian, separatist movement rallied in the city center. Muslims, who view such public displays as a provocation, assaulted the demonstrators, touching off the sectarian clashes.
The earlier conflict here galvanized militant Muslims across Indonesia -- and attracted Islamic fighters from around Southeast Asia and from the Middle East.
Many members of Jemaah Islamiyah, an al-Qaeda-linked extremist group blamed for a series of deadly bombings in Indonesia, have told authorities that they fought in the conflict.
Unlike most of mainly Muslim Indonesia, the province's 2 million people are evenly divided between Muslims and Christians.
Christians complain that Muslim settlers from other parts of Indonesia have come to dominate government work and the retail sector, siphoning off jobs and business from Christians.
In a related development, police in Indonesia's Central Sulawesi said in the past three months they have seized 168 homemade bombs and about 100 firearms in searches of areas that were also the scene of sectarian fighting in recent years.
‘MOTHER’ OF THAILAND: In her glamorous heyday in the 1960s, former Thai queen Sirikit mingled with US presidents and superstars such as Elvis Presley The year-long funeral ceremony of former Thai queen Sirikit started yesterday, with grieving royalists set to salute the procession bringing her body to lie in state at Bangkok’s Grand Palace. Members of the royal family are venerated in Thailand, treated by many as semi-divine figures, and lavished with glowing media coverage and gold-adorned portraits hanging in public spaces and private homes nationwide. Sirikit, the mother of Thai King Vajiralongkorn and widow of the nation’s longest-reigning monarch, died late on Friday at the age of 93. Black-and-white tributes to the royal matriarch are being beamed onto towering digital advertizing billboards, on
DOUBLE-MURDER CASE: The officer told the dispatcher he would check the locations of the callers, but instead headed to a pizzeria, remaining there for about an hour A New Jersey officer has been charged with misconduct after prosecutors said he did not quickly respond to and properly investigate reports of a shooting that turned out to be a double murder, instead allegedly stopping at an ATM and pizzeria. Franklin Township Police Sergeant Kevin Bollaro was the on-duty officer on the evening of Aug. 1, when police received 911 calls reporting gunshots and screaming in Pittstown, about 96km from Manhattan in central New Jersey, Hunterdon County Prosecutor Renee Robeson’s office said. However, rather than responding immediately, prosecutors said GPS data and surveillance video showed Bollaro drove about 3km
POWER ABUSE WORRY: Some people warned that the broad language of the treaty could lead to overreach by authorities and enable the repression of government critics Countries signed their first UN treaty targeting cybercrime in Hanoi yesterday, despite opposition from an unlikely band of tech companies and rights groups warning of expanded state surveillance. The new global legal framework aims to bolster international cooperation to fight digital crimes, from child pornography to transnational cyberscams and money laundering. More than 60 countries signed the declaration, which means it would go into force once ratified by those states. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described the signing as an “important milestone,” and that it was “only the beginning.” “Every day, sophisticated scams destroy families, steal migrants and drain billions of dollars from our economy...
Indonesia was to sign an agreement to repatriate two British nationals, including a grandmother languishing on death row for drug-related crimes, an Indonesian government source said yesterday. “The practical arrangement will be signed today. The transfer will be done immediately after the technical side of the transfer is agreed,” the source said, identifying Lindsay Sandiford and 35-year-old Shahab Shahabadi as the people being transferred. Sandiford, a grandmother, was sentenced to death on the island of Bali in 2013 after she was convicted of trafficking drugs. Customs officers found cocaine worth an estimated US$2.14 million hidden in a false bottom in Sandiford’s suitcase when
RSS