Jakarta – At least 20 people were killed and more than 100 seriously injured Friday in an eruption of deadly street fighting between Muslims and Christians in the eastern Indonesian city of Ambon, reports and hospital officials said.

The state TVRI television showed panicked residents fleeing down the rain-soaked streets of Ambon, amid billowing clouds of black smoke, some with children in their arms, others with old people on their backs.

The Christian University, the offices of the state electricity company and the central telecommunications office, were all burning, torched by the warring mobs, TVRI said.

The state Antara agency said the Christian and Muslim victims died from gunshot wounds, some caused by troops trying to separate the two sides. Antara put the casualties at 20 dead and more than 100 injured by 4.30 in the afternoon and said more than 100 were seriously injured.

"The bodies of seven Christians were brought into the hospital in the afternoon. All them died from gunshot wounds," Turki, an official at Ambon's Haulussy state hospital, told AFP earlier in the day before telephone lines went dead. He said 53 injured people, "most of whom were wounded by gunshots and bomb explosions, were also admitted here."

Malik Selang of the Muslim Al-Fatah emergency command post told AFP that "ten Muslims were killed by military snipers" who were roaming through buildings in Talake area near Ambon port. "We have also taken the names of fifty people [Muslims] who were injured in the shootings," Selang added.

Military officers and police in Ambon were not immediately available for comment on the new clashes, and Antara said in its latest report from Ambon that the area commander Brigadier General Max Tamaela's telephone had also gone out.

Since the clashes in the Malukus islands began nearly 18 months ago, some 4,000 people have been killed, thousands of homes and buildings gutted and almost half a million people have been forced to flee to other islands and provinces.

Earlier Friday, Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid said he had ordered the Malukus to be closed to outsiders from other Indonesian islands in an effort to stem the violence there. Wahid conceded the situation was "out of control" and said it would take time to restore order, referring to the lethal cycle of vengeance in the Maluku islands and those whom he said did not want peace.