Borneo fighting kills at least 50

The death toll has reached at least 50 after five days of violence in the Indonesian province of Kalimantan, on the island of Borneo.

The authorities are sending troops and riot police to try to contain the conflict, as well as ships to evacuate up to 10,000 people displaced by the fighting.

Two local government officials have been arrested, accused of provoking the clashes, Indonesia's national police chief said.

The BBC's Jakarta correspondent, Richard Galpin, says the conflict has been brutal, with houses burned and people hacked to death with machetes.

An official in the central Kalimantan city of Sampit said the displaced people needed food and medical assistance.

Arrests

Violence broke out on Sunday between the indigenous Dayak population and migrants from the islands of Java and Madura.

Dayaks resent the migrants

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

The officials had reportedly lost their jobs due to new regional autonomy laws.

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.

And more houses were burned on Thursday, our correspondent says.

The bodies of people who had been hacked to death in the violence were left scattered on the streets in Sampit, according to reports.

Machetes and daggers

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

Troops have been sent to stop the fighting

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

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.

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

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

At least 1,000 migrants were killed - many beheaded - in fighting in West Kalimantan in 1997.