Jakarta – Muslim assailants killed at least 23 Christians fleeing from an attack on their village into the jungles of the Indonesian island of Ambon, a Christian activist said Tuesday. The dead were among some 4,000 people who had fled the village in fear of their lives, he said.

The killings were the latest incident in a wave of Muslim-Christian violence that has swept the Malukus islands since January 1999, leaving more than 4,000 dead.

"A surviving witness whom our men have questioned in Suli village, said there were at least 23 bodies in the forests where some 4,000 villagers had fled to escape attacks by Muslims on Waai village," said Sammy Weileruni of the joint Christian coordination post in Ambon city.

Weileruni said that the 27-year-old witness, Ishak Bakarbessi, said that Waai village, which had been under attack since Sunday, was now completely obliterated and that all the villagers had left it for the jungles.

"But the Muslim attackers and some soldiers from the Kostrad 321 battalion are now occupying the village and have set up tents and makeshift shelters," Weileruni said quoting the witness. He was refering to members of the army strategic reserve command (Kostrad) battalion, which had been assigned to safeguard the area covering Waai.

Bakarbessi could not give further details but said that the attackers had pursued the villagers when they fled into the jungles. Weileruni said the 23 victims may have been killed between Monday and Tuesday morning, and added that because of conditions there, the bodies were left lying where they fell, and could not be immediately retrieved.

Waai, a village some 35 kilometres northeast of Ambon city, was first attacked on July 5 and 6. The fresh attack was launched Sunday.

Weileruni and leaders of the Christian community in Ambon have repeatedly expressed distrust of the Indonesian troops deployed in Ambon and have called for the intervention of foreign peacekeepers. They have accused soldiers of siding with the Muslims, and cite several documented cases of uniformed and armed soldiers taking parts in attacks on Christian settlements in Ambon in recent weeks.

Violence between Christians and Muslims in the Maluku islands was sparked by a dispute between a Christian public transport driver and a migrant Muslim in Ambon on January 19, 1999. The clash quickly degenerated into mass violence between the two groups there and in other islands in the groyup. Some 4,000 people have been killed and half a million driven from their homes in the past 18 months.