Borneo exodus gathers pace

A total of almost 5,000 migrants have been evacuated

A second ship carrying more than 2,000 people has left the Indonesian province of central Kalimantan on Borneo after a week of ethnic violence in which more than 200 people have died.

The government has promised to send more troops to the area, with the aim of ending the violence in three days.

Security minister Bambang Susilo Yudhyono - visiting the region - told the BBC he was shocked by what he had seen.

At least 5,000 refugees have now left from the worst-affected areas around the river port of Sampit.

More vessels have arrived to ferry out more of the about 15,000 refugees who have flocked to the town.

Survivors are said to be in a desperate condition, with many having gone without food for days.

Doctors say lack of food and clean water in the makeshift camps are taking more lives; five children have died in the past 24 hours alone.

The refugees - mostly immigrants from Madura island - have been repeatedly attacked by the native Dayak people in Central Kalimantan.

Extra troops have arrived in the province, but the violence has continued amid growing criticism that the local security forces are failing to intervene to stop the attacks.

A delegation of senior Indonesian officials, including the head of the Indonesian armed forces and the ministers of security and health, arrived on Borneo on Sunday, amid fears that the violence is spilling over into other parts of the island.

A house belonging to a Madurese migrant was burnt down on Saturday night in the regional capital, Palangkaraya.

Bloody history

The Dayaks say they will not stop until they have forced the entire migrant population out of the Kalimantan area - in total at least 60,0000.

A BBC correspondent in Kalimantan says Dayak gangs armed with machetes and daggers are sparing no one, neither women no children.

An Indonesian soldier displays a weapon used by Dayaks

They have been parading the severed heads of their victims through the streets of Sampit.

This week's killings on Borneo, which is shared between Indonesia and Malaysia, began a week ago.

The bloody outbreak of violence - the worst in the region since 1997 - is the latest of a series on the island, which are mostly sparked by disputes over land and jobs.

The Dayaks feel marginalised by rapid development in the region and view the migrant Madurese as aggressive settlers. The Madurese were relocated as part of a government development programme aimed at reducing overcrowding in other parts of Indonesia.

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

The World Bank has warned on Friday that "regional unrest and political and ethnic tensions threaten national unity" in Indonesia.