Banda Aceh – At least 49 people were killed or found dead in the violence-plagued Indonesian province of Aceh during the weekend, hospital and rebel sources said Sunday.
The violence continued as representatives of the government and the separatist Free Aceh Movement (GAM) were meeting for peace talks in Geneva.
About 20 decomposing corpses were found in several difficult to access areas in Central Aceh on Sunday, a staff member at the general hospital in nearby Takengon town said. It is believed that they were victims of violence in the area in mid-June. The Indonesian Red Cross volunteers who left for the area have not returned yet so the precise number of bodies is yet not known," the man told AFP.
But the employee, who declined to identify himself, said information from local residents said there were at least 20 bodies. The area where the bodies were found is in hills about 50 kilometres east of Takengon.
Scores of people went missing there in mid-June when separatist rebels clashed with armed military-backed militias in violence that left a confirmed 45 killed, scores of buildings burned and hundreds of refugees.
Meanwhile 26 bodies with gunshot wounds were also found in Central Aceh on Saturday, a local paramedic said. Some of the bodies were also burned beyond recognition, the paramedic said.
He quoted residents as saying the victims might have been killed during a military raid on a suspected GAM base in Menderek village on Friday. The local GAM spokesman, Win Rimeu Raya, said the victims were civilians killed during the raid.
Spokesman for the Indonesian military in Aceh, Lieutenant Colonel Firdaus said 20 rebels had been killed during the raid, with one soldier injured. However Raya said the raid only killed four rebels while the rest of the dead were civilian. He claimed seven soldiers also died.
Firdaus could not confirm the reports about either sets of bodies found over the weekend, saying he had not yet received a report from local military commanders.
Additionally, soldiers conducting a search operation in Bireun district on Saturday, shot dead a civilian, local GAM commander Teungku Amri bin Abdul Wahab said, adding 10 civilians were also arrested.
A rebel was also killed during a raid on a suspected GAM house in West Aceh on Saturday, Aceh Police Spokesman Adjunct Senior Commissioner Sad Harunantyo said in a press release.
Meanwhile, the body of an unidentified woman was found in West Aceh on Saturday, a staff member at a local general hospital said.
Around 900 people have been killed in violence related to conflict between the government and GAM since the beginning of the year in Aceh, a resource-rich province on the northern tip of Sumatra island.
The weekend's talks in Geneva, facilitated by the Switzerland-based Henri Dunant Center, were broken off last year after a series of failed truces. GAM has been fighting for an Islamic sultanate in staunchly-Muslim Aceh since the 1970s.