Agencies in Sampit and Palangkaraya – The death toll from six days of brutal ethnic clashes on Borneo island rose to at least 143 yesterday as the violence spread and armed bands of Dayak tribesmen continued to rampage through the main town of Sampit.
"The number of bodies brought into hospitals and recorded is 143, but there are still many more bodies lying in the streets, many without heads," said Komaruddin Sukhami, a doctor at the hospital in Sampit in Central Kalimantan province. He said the carnage was "like the French revolution".
Police and residents said Dayak tribesmen armed with swords, bows and arrows and blow-guns were stalking the corpse-strewn streets of Sampit for Madurese settlers. Smoke was rising from the homes of the Madurese, most of whom had fled.
"The situation is getting worse," regional police chief Brigadier-General Bambang Pranoto said. "The riots are spreading to other towns where there are still many Madurese."
A naval landing craft and two transport ships were due to arrive at the river port in Sampit to collect hundreds of refugees sheltering in government offices and take them to Surabaya, Java.
"Fighting stopped this morning but we're still on alert," said Chief Corporal Rahman, a duty officer at Sampit's district military command headquarters. "Burnings of Madurese homes still continue today.
Hundreds of Dayaks are still roaming around the city ... they are in small groups of four or five people. They are wearing red headbands to identify themselves as Dayak tribesmen and all of them have sharp weapons in their hands. On my way to work this morning I saw two headless bodies lying on the street still untouched.
"All Madurese residents, mostly women, children and elderly, have taken refuge at the district's office and they are protected by police troops ... but some of the men are still guarding their homes."
Dr Sukhami said the killings were spreading in a "triangle of violence". He said 65 of the bodies were found outside Sampit, the district capital. "Another 26 bodies have been found in Kuala Kuayan sub-district, 75km north of Sampit, since yesterday, and seven in Cempaga [30km northeast]," he said.
On Thursday, Dr Sukhami said 28 bodies had been recovered in Parenggean, 40km north, and four in Kasongan, 80km northeast.
More than 600 police and soldiers have been sent to Sampit, and Chief Security Minister Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has said another battalion of 650 soldiers is on its way.
Kalimantan, the Indonesian part of Borneo island, has seen repeated outbreaks of ethnic violence.
Dayaks resent the commercial dominance of ethnic Madurese, relocated to Kalimantan through the government-sponsored transmigration programme designed to move residents from crowded to thinly populated areas.
In December, at least four people died in several days of fighting in Central Kalimantan, while 11 people were killed in the West Kalimantan capital of Pontianak in October.
Violent attacks on Madurese by Malays, backed by Dayak tribesmen, in West Kalimantan in 1999 left 3,000 people dead and tens of thousands of migrants displaced.