Ambon – At least three people were hurt in a shootout between Indonesian police, soldiers and marines in the riot-torn city of Ambon, residents and a navy officer said Thursday.

The incident began when soldiers from an army battalion in the Christian area of Galala fired shots at the Muslim-dominated Tantui area, residents said. But the shots must have threatened a post manned by the police Brimob elite unit because they returned fire, they said.

The shootout worsened when three speedboats manned by marines on the Bay of Ambon also came under fire. "Our men shot back because they were shot at," Colonel Chaidir Patanory of the Halong navy base near Galala said.

Witnesses in Tantui said one Brimob officer was grievously injured by a shot to his head and immediately evacuated. Stray shots also wounded two refugees sheltering in the Halong navy compound, said one refugee who identified herself as Arini.

"We have also heard that two civilians have been injured by stray shots, but I have not seen them myself," Arini added. The military and police in Ambon declined immediate comment.

Ambon's sectarian violence has often taken place at sea, with several speedboats shot at by snipers this month.

Fighting between Muslims and Christians in the Maluku islands has left more than 5,000 people dead and created 500,000 refugees since violence first erupted in the town of Ambon, on the island of the same name, in January 1999. The conflict prompted the government to slap a civil emergency rule on the Malukus last year.