Abducted Army member found dead in ditch
JAKARTA (JP): An Army member who was abducted by a group of unidentified gunmen on Friday was found dead the following day in Aceh, bringing the number of slain servicemen in the troubled province since May to 30.
North Aceh Military commander Lt. Col. Giyono told Antara the mutilated body of Second Sgt. Muhammad Sufy, was found near a gas station in Geurugok subdistrict.
Sufy was a member of the Makmur district military command. Locals discovered the body, which was difficult to identify due to wounds, in a ditch a few meters from the highway connecting the Aceh capital of Banda Aceh to Medan in North Sumatra.
The 45-year-old was abducted on his way home from work just after dusk on Friday, his family said.
Doctors at the local military hospital in the North Aceh capital of Lhokseumawe estimated that Sufy had been dead 10 hours before his body was discovered.
Indonesian Military (TNI) chief Gen. Wiranto told the House of Representatives on Friday that 29 military soldiers and police were killed between May and July 1 while on duty in Aceh. The armed separatist rebel group was blamed for the murders.
Since May, violence has claimed more than 100 lives, including 41 people killed in a clash with troops in Krueng Geukueh subdistrict, near Lhokseumawe on May 3.
North Aceh is one of three Aceh regencies most affected by violence, which remains unabated after 10 years of anti-rebel military operations were lifted in August last year.
A group of armed civilians also set fire to a bus in Blang Tambue, some 60 kilometers west of Lhokseumawe, on its way to Banda Aceh from Medan on Friday. Nobody was hurt in the incident.
It was the fifth bus burned by armed groups in the past month.
Bus driver Ruslan told Antara a group of men who carried Russian-made AK-47s and American-made M-16 rifles stopped the bus with the number plate BL 7391 A and asked all passengers to get out before setting it ablaze.
Some residents said they watched the ambush from a distance, but could do nothing to stop it for safety reasons.
"We could only watch the fire gutting the bus, and we dared to approach the passengers after the armed people left," a resident who requested anonymity said.
In response to the ongoing violence affecting public transportation in Aceh, chairman of the provincial Land Transportation Owners Organization (Organda), Kamaruddin THB, demanded security authorities to step up protection measures for buses plying Banda Aceh to Medan.
"In the absence of strict measures by the security authorities, public transportation companies will think twice before they operate their fleet there," he said.
In Medan, nongovernmental organizations which help hundreds of refugees fleeing Aceh have started a fund-raising program for the Acehnese. An activist, Ikrimah Hamidy, said on Sunday over Rp 10 million had been collected at Friday's prayer in some mosques.
Ikrimah said the money had been used to buy medicine, soaps, toothpaste and detergent for refugees, who are currently taking shelter at mosques and school buildings.
Aceh Governor Syamsuddin Mahmud has called on residents in the volatile regencies of North Aceh, Pidie and East Aceh to stay put and asked refugees to return home despite the continuing violence.(39/amd)