Fighting intensifies in Solomon despite supposed agreement

SYDNEY, JUNE 7: Fighting intensified between rival guerrilla armies in the Solomon Islands on Wednesday, despite an announcement by coup l...

SYDNEY, JUNE 7: Fighting intensified between rival guerrilla armies in the Solomon Islands on Wednesday, despite an announcement by coup leader Andrew Nori he was ready to make peace with the Government.

Details of casualties were not known, but unconfirmed reports said as many as 50 to 100 men could have been killed or wounded. Several thousand men were reported to be engaged in a pitched battle between the well-armed Malaita Eagle Force (MEF) and the more numerous but less well-armed Isatabu Freedom Movement (IFM), that started near the airport before dawn.

An evacuated school was hit during what Amnesty International described as "indiscriminate shelling" by rebel forces from a seized gunboat east of the capital, Honiara.

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Various sources said MEF fighters were also using the gunboat to bombard the IFM, indigenous militants from the main island of Guadalcanal who are trying to drive out long-term settlers from neighbouring Malaita. New Zealand Foreign Minister Phil Goff told CNN he had received confirmed reports that MEF fighters had seized two gunboats, and were using the boats’ heavy machine-guns to attack IFM forces on the shore.

But he said he was not able to confirm any casualty figures. Asked whether the Solomons could be slipping into civil war, he said: "There’s a real danger of that … We don’t want to go down that path."