Agencies in Ambon – At least 23 people were killed and more than 50 injured as fighting between Muslims and Christians intensified in Ambon in the Maluku islands.

Those killed since late on Tuesday included two members of the security forces, at least 12 Muslims and at least one Christian, officials, witnesses and the state Antara news agency said yesterday.

Among the dead were a 19-year-old policeman and an army soldier, Antara said, adding that at least 59 people were injured. Most of the civilian victims were shot dead when security forces opened fire to disperse mobs of the two religious communities clashing in the centre of Ambon city.

More than 1,000 Islamic "holy warrior" militants have poured into Ambon in recent weeks. Sammy Waileruni, a lawyer with the Christian co-ordination post at the Maranatha Protestant Church, said he saw hundreds of the Laskar Jihad extremists armed with rifles and grenade launchers attack Christian houses in the Mardika area yesterday.

Authorities have discouraged the militants' departure to Ambon but have been unable to prevent them going because they were not armed when they boarded ships in Surabaya, East Java, to sail for the islands. About 3,000 militant recruits underwent military training in a camp near Jakarta last month. Mr Waileruni said seven houses in Mardika and around the Silo church had been torched.

Antara said two people were killed and 11 wounded in the first clashes late on Tuesday at the border separating the Mardhika and Batumerah areas. A further 21 were killed and 48 injured yesterday in similar violence nearby which triggered shooting by the security forces.

More than 2,500 people have been killed and hundreds of thousands have fled their homes in 16 months of sectarian clashes in Maluku province and neighbouring North Maluku, collectively known as the Spice Islands.

The strife is fuelled by old rivalries and more recent complaints by Christians that Muslim newcomers from other parts of Indonesia have been taking their jobs and are not respecting local customs. Before Tuesday there had been a sharp drop in sectarian violence in the islands.

The latest violence erupted after a young Christian man, identified as Nyong Ferdinandus, was killed by a truck in a hit- and-run accident. After the accident, rumours spread that a car, along with two passengers, had been torched. Soon afterwards Muslims and Christians started fighting in two districts of the city.