Ambon – Authorities have suspended all civilian flights to this riot-torn Indonesian city because of escalating Moslem-Christian violence and handed the airport over to the military, sources said Thursday.
A duty officer at the military information office said the suspension affected all commercial flights to and from Pattimura civilian airport, across a bay from the city.
"All civilian flights had been temporarily suspended. There really isn't anything wrong there or in the area, but people just feel cautious after all that's happened," Captain Sutarno, of the information office, told AFP by phone. "A [military] Hercules flight however managed to get out and return to Jakarta yesterday," he said.
Air base commander Lieutenant Colonel Iskandar has taken over control of the airport following the evacuation of scores of airport employees on Wednesday by military transport plane to Jakarta, 2,400 kilometers to the west.
Ambon's Pattimura airport lies across the bay from the city center, and earlier this week, the privately-owned Mandala airlines, one of only two carriers serving Ambon, announced that it was cancelling flights there.
Mandala cited threats to its staff from Moslem-Christian clashes in Laha village near the airport perimeter, and the acting head of the local office of the communications ministry, J.A. Hallatu said on Tuesday an airport staff dormitory in Laha had come under attack.
The staff of Merpati Nusantara airlines, the last airline to serve the city, had been evacuated along with the aiport personnel, Hallatu told the Jakarta Post newspapert.
Meanwhile, eight doctors and a team of medics arrived here on Thursday and met with Ambon's deputy governor before heading out to their assigned hospitals to help deal with the flood of wounded from the clashes.
Downtown Ambon has been reported mainly quiet in the past two days, with only sporadic clashes, though some 34,000 people remain in makeshift refugee centers in military barracks, mosques and churches.
Maluku police chief Colonel Bugis Saman on Thursday said some 117 people have been killed and 394 others injured since renewed religious clashes started on July 27. At least 18 of the dead, and possibly as many as 25, were herded into a locked church and shot.