Reuters in Jakarta – At least 43 people have been killed in bloody gang battles between Christians and Muslims in Indonesia's troubled Spice Islands, ignoring presidential pleas for peace.

More than 170 homes, churches and other buildings had been torched during the bloodshed on Buru island and hundreds of villagers had fled to the police headquarters, officials said.

The situation remained tense as military and police reinforcements headed to the area, the official Antara news agency said on Thursday.

Wednesday's fighting is the latest in a wave of communal bloodshed that has killed 700 hundred poeple across the famed spice islands in Indonesia's far east since it erupted in January.

Newspaper reports quoted one resident, identified by the single name of Salampessy, as saying no police or troops intervened to stop the carnage. There were no further details.

The violence came two weeks after President Abdurrahman Wahid visited the province and called for reconciliation and religious tolerance.

Buru was the site of a penal colony set up in the late 1960's to house thousands of prisoners accused of being communists by the Suharto regime.

The colony was disbanded many years later, but some prisoners and their families opted to remain.