Fitri. R, Sumbawa, West Nusa Tenggara – More than 100 families have fled their forest village in Sumbawa after government personnel attacked and set fire to their homes, an activist said on Thursday.

"Houses in the Pekasa customary village were damaged and set on fire by personnel from the joint task force, including guards from the West Nusa Tenggara [NTB] forestry office. The fate of more than 100 families remains unclear," activist Gunawan Jasardi said.

Officials acknowledged destroying the homes, but said they had been illegally built in a protected forest area. They said the task force was formed to clear out illegal settlements.

Gunawan, the chief executive of the Sumbawa chapter of the Alliance of Customary Societies of Nusantara (AMAN, said Wednesday's incident took place after the NTB forestry office accused villagers of engaging in illegal logging in the protected forest.

He said the task force that attacked the village, located in Lunyuk subdistrict, included police officers and soldiers and had arrested a respected local leader, Edi Kuswanto.

NTB provincial spokesman M. Faozal confirmed that the provincial forestry office had conducted a raid on the houses in Pekasa and destroyed them, but he denied that the houses had been burned down. He also said there were 50 families in the Pekasa settlement, not 100. Faozal said the forestry office raided the homes because they had been illegally built in protected forest.

"They had been warned before, but they claimed to be a customary village. In truth, there are no such customary villages in Lunyuk," he said. "We have had it clarified by the Sumbawa district administration that there are no such customary societies in Pekasa."

Customary village residents would be allowed to build homes in the forest. Faozal said that the residents claimed to belong to a customary society that had settled in the area generations ago but in fact, they were newcomers from Lombok.

NTB Deputy Governor Badrul Munir, Faozal said, was on his way to Lunyuk and would meet with authorities from Sumbawa and West Sumbawa districts. The forest in question straddles the two districts.

Faozal also denied that there was a relationship between the eviction and the presence of the Batu Hijau gold mines nearby. The mine is about 12 kilometers from the village.

"The people in that region were illegally logging the forest and this has nothing to do with the mine," Faozal said.