Dili – A number of pro-Indonesian militiamen and members of their families were attacked when they tried to return to their homes in East Timor, a UN official said Friday.

Several people were injured in fights with their neighbors in recent days, said Paul Stromberg, spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

He said the victims had all belonged to pro-Indonesian militias responsible for much of the destruction, rape and murder that gripped East Timor in September following the overwhelming vote for independence. "This is the first known case of a community refusing to reintegrate several families," Stromberg said.

The militia members fled to Indonesian-controlled West Timor after international peacekeepers landed in East Timor on Sept. 20.

Stromberg said 51 militiamen had already been reintegrated into their former neighborhoods. Fourteen East Timorese serving with the Indonesian army also have returned home, he said.

East Timorese local leaders have repeatedly invited militiamen and their supporters to return to their homeland.

Friday, the former editor-in-chief of East Timor's only former newspaper, Suara Timor, returned home with the intention of restarting the daily.

Salvador Ximenes Soares said he had been personally invited by East Timorese leader Jose Alexandre "Xanana" Gusmao to return home and restart the Indonesian-language paper.

According to UN figures, 129,032 East Timorese refugees have so far returned from West Timor. About 120,000 others are still in West Timor or have moved to other parts of Indonesia.