Borneo survivors tell of Dayak terror

Thousands of settlers rescued by the Indonesian navy from central Kalimantan have arrived in Java, speaking of their terror as indigenous Dayaks drove them from their homes.

Correspondents at the Javanese port of Surabaya have heard ethnic Madurese children and adults speak of relatives and friends being decapitated or burnt to death.

One correspondent quotes a man who says he and more than twenty colleagues were persuaded to leave an Islamic school with a promise they would not be harmed.

The man said most of his colleagues were immediately hacked to death. A seven-year-old boy said all his fingers had been chopped off by Dayaks. But another correspondent spoke to a Javanese settler who said the Dayaks had made no attempt to harm him and his family becasue they weren't Madurese.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service