Jakarta – More than 80,000 people have fled violence between soldiers and rebels in the troubled Indonesian province of Aceh, an official said Thursday.

The refugee numbers had been swelled by more than 6,000 people who left their villages in East Aceh to reach 80,020, the head of the Aceh social affairs office, Zaharir, said quoted by the Antara news agency.

"We have just received a report by telephone that says that 1,638 people have fled villages in Simpang Ulin subdistrict and about 5,000 people left their homes in Julok subdistrict," Zaharir said, speaking in the provincial capital Banda Aceh.

The refugees were sheltered in three Aceh districts – Pidie, East and North Aceh – with most of them being in Pidie district where 48,823 people have been registered in seven refugee centres.

In North Aceh, five refugee centres are housing 20,773 people while the rest have been sheltered in six centres in East Aceh since the refugee flood started on June 20, he said.

He declined to say why people had been leaving their villages, but human rights groups in Aceh have said people had fled in droves fearing violence between soldiers and rebels of the Aceh Merdeka movement.

The Aceh Merdeka movement has been fighting for an independent Islamic state since the 1970s.

Violence has resurged since soldiers shot dead 41 civilian protestors in Lhokseumawe, North Aceh, on May 3 with subsequent clashes and ambushes leaving more than 100 people killed and hundreds of buildings torched.

Pidie, North and East Aceh bore the brunt of the violence during a decade of harsh anti-rebel military operations in Aceh which was only halted in August last year.

Resentment against the alleged widespread abuses and human rights violations by soldiers have sparked a rising call for a referendum on self determination in the staunchly Moslem province.