Jakarta – Tensions were running high in the strife-torn Indonesian islands of Maluku Monday with troops placed on alert after sectarian clashes left six dead and 24 injured, officials and the Antara news agency said.

Four more people were injured late Sunday when a clash broke out in the Christian-dominated Mardika district in downtown Ambon, Antara said.

At least six Muslims and Christian residents from the Baguala sub-district, 15 kilometers east of Ambon have been killed since the violence flared on Friday.

Poppy Handel, a civilian staff member at the Ambon police headquarters, said Muslim residents Monday shot "several Christian residents who were trying to leave the city" with arrows.

"This morning, when the Dobonsolo ship docked at the Yos Sudarso border, several people who were escorted by police were shot with arrows by Muslim residents, " she told AFP.

"Every time the ship docks at the harbor, which is a Christian-dominated area, people are injured or killed," Handel said, adding the violence ended several hours later. Police "have yet to receive an official report of casualties from Friday's incident," she said.

An official with the local chapter of the Council of Indonesian Muslim Scholars, Malik Selang, told AFP the situation in Ambon "is very tense" with security troops in the city on maximum alert. "Mobs are concentrating in many different sectors of the city, in the harbor area in Trikora, Air Salobar and Mardika-Batumerah."

But although Ambon was "relatively quieter" Monday morning, Selang charged that security forces from the Marines and the army's Kostrad and field artillery units "are not doing their best to maintain peace and security."

He alleged "it was the police's Brimob unit who opened fire" during Friday and Saturday incidents between fighting residents of Nania and Waiheru villages in Baguala.