Bloody clashes in Borneo

Bloody clashes in recent days between migrants and indigenous people in Indonesia's Central Kalimantan province on Borneo island, have left at least 30 people dead.

The bodies of people who had been hacked to death in the violence which broke out on Sunday were left scattered on the streets in Sampit city, reports say.

Ethnic Malays and Dayaks have long resented migrant Madurese

Police have imposed a curfew and hundreds of riot police have been sent to the area.

On Wednesday, just as security forces appeared to have gained control of the situation, fresh clashes broke out, leaving at least eight people dead, according to the state news agency Antara.

Armed with machetes, the indigenous Dayak people attacked settlers, who originate from the country's Java island and Madura.

Dozens of houses were also burnt down while thousands of migrants fled their homes, with some travelling hundreds of kilometres to the regional capital.

A senior police official in the town described the situation as dangerous and said there had been many victims, but declined to give a precise figure for the death toll.

In recent years, following the end of former President Suharto's autocratic rule, long suppressed ethnic tensions have erupted in many provinces across the archipelago's 13,000 islands.

Machetes and daggers

Witnesses have said mobs of Dayaks were on the streets of Sampit carrying machetes and daggers.

Fierce brawls have erupted in recent years between ethnic groups

Around 30 houses were also torched on Tuesday in Kuala Kuanyan, another town about 170km (102 miles) from Sampit.

In Jakarta, the national police chief has accused two local government officials, who had lost their jobs due to new regional autonomy laws, of instigating the violence.

General Suroyo Bimantoro said the two officials had paid several men to stir up the long-standing hostility between locals and migrants.

Beheadings

Clashes between the Dayaks and migrant Madurese - who are viewed in the country as aggressive settlers - go back decades, often fuelled by land disputes.

Outbreaks of fighting have produced repeated waves of refugees

In recent years, Dayaks have been marginalised by rapid development in the region, and have found themselves competing with the Madurese for jobs.

At least a thousand migrants were killed - many beheaded - in fighting in West Kalimantan in 1997.

Amid outbreaks of violence across the country, political tension is also at a high point, after President Abdurrahman Wahid was rebuked by parliament for his role in two financial scandals.