29 killed, eight injured in North Maluku unrest: Police

AMBON, South Maluku (JP): At least 29 people have been killed and eight more seriously injured in the most recent clashes between Muslims and Christians in the North Maluku towns of Soa Siu and Ternate, some 500 kilometers north of here, local police said on Thursday.

Maluku Police spokesman Maj. Jekriel Philip told The Jakarta Post that some 14 churches and 275 houses, including 27 owned by police officers, were also set on fire in the violence.

The communal clashes first erupted in predominantly Muslim Soa Siu last Wednesday and spread to the nearby town of Ternate on Saturday.

Ternate is the capital of North Maluku, one of the country's three newly established provinces.

Jekriel said as of Thursday, only one man had been arrested by the North Maluku Police. He said local police had confiscated at least nine homemade rifles, one hand grenade, five cartons of ammunition and dozens of sharp weapons.

Jekriel also said some 200 people were evacuated by a navy ship to Bitung in North Sulawesi on Tuesday, while 900 more were still seeking shelter at local police and military headquarters.

He said the situation in both areas was slowly returning to normal and that a battalion of the Elite Police Mobile Brigade personnel from Jakarta was still on its way.

Meanwhile in Jakarta, the Indonesian Communion of Churches (PGI) called on people in strife-torn Maluku to stop the months of communal violence.

PGI issued a statement on Wednesday urging all parties in the province to stop fighting.

"We call on ulemas, priests and members of all religions to realize how deep we have been dragged into the wave of self- destruction," PGI said in a statement signed by its chairman, Sularso Sopater, and deputy secretary-general Weinata Sairin.

PGI added that people in Maluku were "trapped in a short-term political interest that was deliberately and sophisticatedly played by certain groups".

PGI, however, gave no support to the statement.

The Maluku islands have seen religious violence since the beginning of the year. Tens of thousands of people have fled to other provinces.

More than 500 people have been killed in two waves of violence between Christians and Muslims this year.

At least four people were killed and scores injured on Tuesday in the latest outbreak of violence between Muslims and Christians in the South Maluku capital of Ambon.

Four people were killed in separate early morning clashes in three areas in Ambon, a local police spokesman said.

In Tuesday's clash, a mob threw gas bombs at the military barracks in an apparent protest against the military's inability to stop arson attacks on provincial mosques and churches, the police and a local journalist said.

Fighting between Muslims and Christians in the Batu Merah area on Monday left one church gutted and a mosque partially burned.

Witnesses said more religious violence broke out in several areas of Ambon after the attack on the barracks.

Batu Merah has been the center of clashes between Muslims and Christians since violence first broke out in Ambon in mid- January. (48/byg)