Susan Sim, Pidie – Village chief Idris Yahya started packing when he heard the machine-gun fire early Friday morning. PPRM riot troops were in the vicinity and that meant one thing: It was no longer safe to stay in Keumala.

"We had to leave. We were afraid that if not, the PPRM would come to kidnap us at night. It happened 10 years ago. It can happen again," he said, feeling safer now in an overflowing refugee camp in the Abu Beureueh Mosque in Pidie.

As the 300 Keumala villagers piled into trucks and vans for the 2-hour trip to Pidie, troops on motorbikes revved into sight.

"They were dragging six to nine bodies with bloody bullet holes behind them," farmer Ibrahim said, taking up the tale as fellow displaced villagers crowded round. The PPRM shouted: 'Come see how we deal with the GAM.' So we had to go look. I was so frightened."

Only three of the dead were known members of the Gerakan Aceh Merdeka (GAM or Free Aceh Movement). "Everyone knows who the GAM are," he shrugged in reply to a question as the others nodded.

Nobody recognised the other six but assumed they were farmers like themselves from elsewhere in the rich rice-and coffee-growing district at the foothills of east Aceh's mountain range.

One of those who suffered at the hands of the Indonesian military during the infamous years – when Aceh was designated a military operation area (DOM) from 1991 to exactly a year ago – was Tengku Noordin of Tangse sub-district.

He said he was held from 1991 to 1993 in the notorious Rancong detention camp and tortured by soldiers who suspected him of being a GAM member.

"Thirty of my friends were killed," said Tengku Noordin who, less "traumatised" now in the Pidie refugee camp, admitted that he was a GAM activist who "did everything" except take up arms.

Sitting in the makeshift tent he and his family have called home since late June, he said he spends his days listening to Islamic lectures.

Sometimes his wife queues for packets of green bean soup for their two toddlers, when that is available. Meals every day consist of rice and salted fish from the communal kitchens.

Drawing strength from his religion, he said he had named the youngest of his 10 children, a 10-week-old infant born just before his family's flight to safety, after the Muhaggirin who accompanied the Prophet Muhammad on his flight from Mecca centuries ago.

"Muhaggir," he said, pointing to the sleeping infant, who was oblivious to the flies buzzing around and the uncertain future ahead.