Jakarta – More than 150 people were killed and many more injured in Monday's attack by Muslims on Christians on the island of Halmahera in Indonesia's Maluku islands, a report said Wednesday, as the military expressed helplessness in the face of constant anarchy.
A church activist was quoted by the state Antara news agency as saying that 152 people were killed and 160 others wounded when around 4,000 Muslim fighters attacked the mainly Christian village of Duma in Galela district on Monday.
Yerda Jawa, the activist at a church synod in neighboring Tobelo district, also said a number of women and children were taken hostage by the Muslim attackers.
But the military in neighboring Ternate, the capital of North Maluku, called the church report one-sided and insisted the death toll from the violence was 114, as first reported on Tuesday.
Sergeant Eka Satria of the North Maluku Task Force based in Ternate confirmed reports from security forces posted in Galela which stated 114 people were killed in the clashes. "The synod's report is one-sided. Our official death toll remains at 114," Satria told AFP.
He denied suggestions that security forces had not done enough to quell the violence but conceded his troops were outnumbered by the attackers. "We have tried every possible means to end the unrest. But if the people don't want peace, there's nothing we can do."
"We had only 30 personnel in Duma [during the attack] while the attackers numbered in the thousands," Satria added. "It's impossible to deploy a battallion of troops in a village while at the same time we are short of personnel to be deployed in other violence-prone areas," he said.
An Indonesian battalion normally consists of 600 personnel. But Satria said 100 personnel had been sent to Duma as soon as his office received report of the attack.
Muhammad Nonci Ismail, an official at a Muslim emergency post told the Republika daily the Muslim side had taken Christians hostage. "Now they are being detained in Soasio," he was quoted as saying.
He claimed Monday's deadly raid was in retaliation for several attacks by Christians on Muslim villages. "Even though they [Christians] have surrendered before, they have continued to create disturbances in Muslim villages," he charged.
The initial reports of the attack which reached Jakarta Tuesday had said more than 200 houses and a church were burned by the attackers in the bloody raid.
The wave of sectarian violence which has plagued the Maluku islands for almost a year and a half started in the Malukus' capital of Ambon in January 1999 and quickly spread to surrounding areas.
Since the clashes began, more than 4,000 people have been killed, thousands of homes and buildings gutted, and almost half a million people have been forced to flee to other islands and provinces. On Tuesday the government said the Maluku violence had driven 107,910 families or 486,797 people out of their homes into refugee centres. Another 11,065 Maluku refugees have already been resettled by the government.