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Up to eight killed, dozens injured in Maluku

Source
Agence France Presse - June 21, 1999

Jakarta – Up to eight people may have been killed and dozens others injured in fresh violence in the southeast of the troubled Indonesian province of Maluku, a report said Monday.

Hundreds of people in at least 14 traditional long motorized canoes attacked the village of Waab in Southeast Maluku before dawn on Sunday meeting armed resistance from the predominantly Christian villagers, the Antara news agency said.

Witnesses told Antara seven of the attackers were killed, believed to have come from the island of Ut about two hours away by boat, and about 40 others were injured in the battle.

A man, identified as Christopol Yamlean, 70, was also killed by shrapnel from a home-made bomb, Antara said, quoting a local hospital source.

At least 430 of the attackers were detained by security forces and were taken to Tual for questioning, the Antara news agency quoted District police chief Lieutenant Colonbel Simson Munthe as saying.

He said that besides coming from Ut, the attackers also included refugees from Ngadi village and Tual. Police in the district town of Tual contacted by AFP Monday declined to confirm the death toll.

Southeast Maluku, and particularly Tual, has been the scene of violent clashes since March opposing Moslem and Christian communities and leaving more than 100 people dead.

Reports of a new outbreak of violence raised tensions in Tual on Sunday, prompting the deployment across town of soldiers dispatched from Java earlier in the year, Antara said.

Violence in Southeast Maluku and Tual erupted after similar clashes in the provincial capital Ambon broke out in mid-January. More than 300 people have been killed in the sectarian violence in Ambon and the other Maluku islands.

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