Reuters in Sampit – Terrified refugees crammed onto an Indonesian navy ship on Saturday to escape marauding mobs in Borneo as officials said the death toll from a week of ethnic bloodshed had reached 210.
Officials said the navy had dispatched another two vessels to pick up some 24,000 refugees holed up in the steamy river town of Sampit, centre of the violence between indigenous Dayaks and immigrants from Madura island off east Java. A passenger ferry was also heading to the town in Central Kalimantan province, they said.
"According to the data we have, the number of dead is 210. The condition in the town is improving but is still a bit tense," said Jauhar Pauzni, a local government spokesman in Sampit, 750km northeast of Jakarta.
Officials have been gradually revising up the death toll as more bodies are discovered in Sampit and surrounding areas. Mr Pauzni said 11 people had been wounded.
Some victims have been beheaded and their heads paraded through town. Others have been burned to death.
Smoke rose from burning buildings in several places in Sampit on Saturday morning and many shops were closed.
Police have arrested about 80 people over the violence, including three alleged masterminds, the official Antara news agency reported on Saturday. There were no immediate reports of fresh attacks.
The latest Kalimantan violence underscores Indonesia's volatility and flared as embattled President Abdurrahman Wahid left on a trip to the Middle East and Africa this week, leaving behind a fragile country crying out for leadership.
Dayaks, once fearsome headhunters, roamed around in search of Madurese following a week of violence which witnesses and officials say has largely gone from fighting between the rival groups to one-sided Dayak attacks on Madurese.
Soldiers have cordoned off makeshift camps sheltering the refugees, who are mainly Madurese. Long simmering tension between Dayaks and Madurese occasionally boils over in Kalimantan, stoked by land disputes and competition for jobs.
"It is better that the Madurese leave. This area will be safe then," said one local official, who declined to be identified.
The navy ship, the Sampit Bay, started loading refugees just after dawn and was expected to leave the town later in the day for Java. At least 2,000 people had crowded onto its decks.
It was unclear when the next ships, which have to wend their way along a winding jungle river, would arrive. Officials say some 15,000 Madurese have already fled Sampit.
Hundreds have died in Indonesia's Borneo provinces in the past two years in unrest between Dayaks and immigrants, mainly Madurese.
Tensions have been fanned by the now abandoned and widely discredited policy of resettling Indonesians from overcrowded areas, such as Madura and Java, in underpopulated provinces.