Jakarta – The official death toll from six days of brutal ethnic slayings on Borneo island rose to more than 200 Friday, a medical worker said.

"More than 200 dead bodies have been recorded," a staff member at Sampit General Hospital in Indonesia's Central Kalimantan province told AFP on condition of anonymity. The state Antara newsagency also reported the death toll had climbed above 200, but gave no sources for its figure.

Antara added that scores of headless bodies were still lying in the streets behind the house of the district chief, Wahyudi Anwar. "The fighting must be stopped as soon as possible, so that there are no more victims," the agency quoted Anwar as saying.

Earlier on Friday East Waringin district medical director Qomaruddin Sukhami told AFP by phone from Sampit that hospitals in the area had received 143 bodies.

"The number of bodies brought into the hospitals and recorded is 143, but there are still many more lying in the streets, many without heads," Sukhami said.

Sukhami said the killings were still spreading to districts surrounding Sampit, the East Waringan district capital and Central Kalimantan's main trading town, where the clashes broke out on Sunday.

"Another 26 bodies have been found in Kuala Kuayan sub-district since yesterday, and seven in Cempaga," he said. Kuala Kuayan lies 75 kilometers north of Sampit, and Cempaga is 30 kilometers to the northeast.

Sukhami, citing a "triangle of violence," said Thursday 28 bodies had been recovered in Parenggean, 40 kilometres to the north, and four in Kasongan, 80 kilometres northeast. Many of the dead had been hacked with traditional Borneo swords called mandau and shot with poison arrows from blowguns, Sukhami said.