Terrified Borneo refugees seek escape

A Dayak fighter hangs a doll as a warning to Madurese

Thousands of terrified people have emerged from hiding in the rainforest of Borneo in Indonesia, where they fled to escape slaughter at the hands of the indigenous Dayak population.

A health worker in Sampit, the town at the centre of more than a week of killing that has left hundreds of Madurese settlers dead, said there were now about 25,000 refugees hoping to be evacuated. About 10,000 have already been taken away by ship.

10,000 Madurese have fled so far

The Indonesian Government on Monday pledged to halt ethnic violence on Borneo within three days.

At least 270 ethnic Madurese have been killed by groups of indigenous Dayak fighters.

Men, women and children have been butchered with machetes, spears and axes - some bodies have been decapitated and had the hearts cut out.

Accounts from fleeing refugees suggest the death toll could rise dramatically.

The BBC Jakarta correspondent, who is in the regional capital Palangkaraya, says despite government claims that it is taking robust action, the army is doing little to halt the Dayak gangs looting and burning Madurese homes and businesses.

Aid efforts

About 650 crack Strategic Command troops arrived in Palangkaraya, along with 14 tonnes of food and medicines aboard military planes.

Many of the refugees are crammed into local police and government compounds, and there have been calls for international medical aid and food.

Dayak Gangs have been murdering, burning and looting with impunity

A district medical officer working in Sampit said the number of dead will be very difficult to calculate.

"The problem is lots of them have been thrown into the river so we'll never be able to know the real number," Dr Qomaruddin Sukhami said.

"I'm focusing all my efforts on the living now. I'm no longer counting corpses," he added.

Wahid criticised

The speaker of the Indonesian parliament, Akbar Tanjung, on Monday criticised President Abdurrahman Wahid for not cancelling his two-week Middle East tour because of the violence in Borneo.

Madurese shops and businesses have been targeted

The president, Mr Tanjung was reported as saying by one Indonesian news service, should have stayed home to deal with the crisis.

In his place, Vice-President Megawati Sukarnoputri broke her silence on events in Borneo to defend the government's response and to plead for more time to deal with the crisis.

The government has warned that that the killings of migrants could continue in some outlying districts which were difficult for the security forces to reach.

Most non-Dayaks have already left the capital but our correspondent says those who remain are clearly in extreme danger.

Shipped out

Many of those who fled Palangkaraya and other settler communities are trying to escape through the river port of Sampit.

The authorities now admit that their main priority is to evacuate the Madurese population as quickly as possible.

To the north, Malaysia is stepping up patrols along its land border with Indonesia, amid fears of an influx of refugees.

The Dayaks say they will not stop until they have forced the entire migrant population out of the Kalimantan area - in total at least 60,000.

Dayak gangs armed with machetes and daggers are sparing no one, correspondents say.

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

Land and jobs

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 - traditionally farmers and hunters - 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.