Jakarta – Ethnic clashes between Madurese settlers and ethnic Malays and Dayaks flared up again Tuesday in Indonesian Borneo, which has been rocked by months of savage unrest, a military source said.
A duty military officer in West Kalimantan's Singkawang district said the clashes erupted after a Madurese mob set fire to more than a dozen Malay-owned homes in the Sungairaya sub-district hamlet of Sungaikeran Tuesday morning.
"They torched Malay homes in Sungaikeran at around 6:00am," duty officer Hari Marso from the Sambas district military post in Singkawang told AFP by telephone. He said there had been no reports of casualties in the ongoing clashes.
"The situation is ongoing ... it is mob against mob," he said. "In fights here they usually use sharp things like machetes and some makeshift weapons," he said, adding that security forces from both the police and military had been sent to the area.
Second Sergeant Risdiyanto of the Sambas district police in Singkawang confirmed the clashes were taking place. "All I can say is that torching of houses is now taking place in Sungaikeran hamlet in the Paritbakau area of Sungairaya," Risdiyanto said.
Violent clashes pitting the Madurese migrant community against local Malays and indigenous Dayaks erupted in mid-January following trivial disputes between individuals.
The violence has spread throughout the Sambas district and resulted in a campaign against Madurese settlers involving mutilation, burning, beheading and ritual cannibalism.
Madurese properties including homes and farmland have also been destroyed in the weeks of violence, which has prompted some 29,000 Madurese settlers to flee their villages or be evacuated by the authorities under military guard.
In the Pemangkat and Tebas sub-districts, Malays and Dayak have set up scores of road blocks, checking all passing vehicles for any Madurese men, the Surya Citra Televisi private television station said.
The check points were set up on Monday after an attempted attack on a hospital in Singkawang over the weekend by Madurese youths, who had been looking for Malays treated for injuries following a clash with security forces a few days earlier.
On Tuesday, a convoy of 17 trucks carrying some 1,500 Madurese settlers safely reached Singkawang from Sambas town, duty officer Masro addded.
Local Dayak and Malay leaders have begun accompanying the refugee convoys, alongside security forces, to prevent attacks on the way to holding centres in Pasir Panjang, just north of Singkawang, and in Pontianak, the main city of the province.