Fresh violence erupts in Maluku's Piru

JAKARTA (JP): Dozens of houses were set on fire on Thursday in fresh clashes between Muslims and Christians in the West Seram town of Piru, some 70 kilometers north of the riot-torn Maluku capital of Ambon, Antara reported.

The news agency said the clashes were triggered by an attack on Tuesday against a resident. The incident then erupted into full-scale riots on Wednesday and Thursday.

Antara did not say, however, whether there were any casualties of the violence.

The news agency said Police Elite Mobile Brigade personnel from the Central Maluku capital of Masohi, some 100 kilometers east of Piru, were rushed on Thursday to the town and that the situation was under control.

Antara reported that houses in Poka area, some 20 kilometers across Ambon bay, were set on fire on Thursday in the ongoing communal clashes.

The agency said there were no injuries resulting from the violence as security forces were able to stop further arson attempts.

The Kompas daily quoted a local military police chief as saying on Wednesday that authorities had detained four soldiers for allegedly shooting to death last week 21 people in a locked church in Galala area, east of Ambon.

Lt. Col. A. Sulaiman said the soldiers were suspects in the Aug. 11 atrocity and that their case had been submitted to military prosecutors.

Residents said earlier that gunmen, in military fatigue of the Army's Strategic Reserves Command (Kostrad) troops, had shot people locked inside the Yabok church.

Residents and local priests have said at least 25 and possibly 30 Christians were killed in the attack.

Sulaiman said 21 people were killed in the incident.

According to the military, the shooting may have taken place after one soldier was shot dead by an unknown marksman while attempting to prevent a conflict from breaking out between two groups of people in the Galala area earlier on the same day.

Authorities have suspended all commercial civilian flights to and from Ambon's Pattimura airport across the bay from the city because of the violence, and handed over the airport to the military.

At least 100 people have been killed and 400 injured in the renewed violence which erupted in the city late last month.

Four battalions of reinforcements from outside Maluku have been dispatched to the provincial capital to quell the violence.

More than 34,000 people are currently sheltering at 35 locations, including mosques, churches and military barracks. Thousands of others have fled the province.

More than 400 people have been killed in communal clashes in the province since violence first erupted in Ambon in mid- January. (byg)