Army deployed in riot-hit Maluku Islands

AMBON, JAN 6: Thousands of soldiers fanned out on Thursday across this city and islands in eastern Indonesia to try to stop Muslim-Christian violence that has claimed hundreds of lives in the past 10 days. Clashes broke out between Muslims and Christians on Indonesia’s Maluku Islands on Wednesday, as the death toll from two weeks of fighting topped 700.

Violence raged in four areas on the Halmahera island, North Maluku police chief Lt Col Didik Prijantono told AFP from the main city of Ternate. A company of 140 soldiers was sent to the riot-ravaged areas on Tuesday, he added. Prijantono said at least 414 people had been killed in the island’s Tobelo sub-district in sectarian clashes since December 26. Similar clashes have also killed 67 in Galela and 21 in Jailolo, he added. He, however, denied reports that more than 2,000 residents had been killed on Halmahera since late December, in what Muslims described as a massacre of their community.

Adjit Tahir, a staff member of the Muslim Al Fatah emergency postsaid on Wednesday that at least 1,400 Muslims had been “massacred” in Tobelo since December 27.

“Security personnel have aided the attackers and supplied them with M-16 guns,” he told AFP from Ambon, the main city of the Malukus.