Jakarta – Bitter ethnic clashes between Madurese settlers and local Malays and Dayaks erupted for the fifth consecutive day Thursday in Indonesia's West Kalimantan province, police said. Rival mobs fought with homemade guns and torched each others' homes in the province's Sungairaya sub-district.

"Until now the situation here includes torching of homes ... it has been going on since morning," duty officer Burhanudin at the local police office told AFP by phone.

Burhanuddin said the two groups were fighting with crude weapons in Sungai Rukmajaya and Sungai Keran hamlets, where Madurese settlers and the local ethnic groups lived side-by-side before hundreds of Madurese fled during the peak of the ethnic riots there last month. An ethnic Malay man was shot and wounded on Wednesday and 16 Malay-owned and three vacant Madurese homes were torched that day.

"A backup force has been sent to help out in the situation here," Burhanuddin said, adding that the reinforcements numbered about 100. "But it's really difficult for the troops to control them because the clashes take place in hamlets and the mobs scurry into their homes as soon as troops arrive," he added. Firefighters could not take their trucks into the hamlets because of the narrow streets, he added.

A man died of stab wounds on Tuesday and nearly a hundred homes have been torched since Sunday when the first of the clashes in Sungairaya broke out.

Violent clashes pitting the Madurese migrant community against Malays and Dayaks erupted in mid-January. The violence has spread throughout the western Sambas district in the province on Borneo island. A mass campaign of violence against Madurese settlers has included beheadings and ritual cannibalism, with over 200 people killed and about 29,000 driven from their homes.