At least 38 people have been killed in clashes between Christians and Muslims in Indonesia's Moluccan Islands.

Another 14 people are reported injured, including four soldiers who are in a serious condition.

A military spokesman told the BBC that the violence began on Sunday after a traffic accident in which a bus driven by a Christian ran over a 14-year-old Muslim boy.

He said local Muslim people, who had seen the man put the injured child in the vehicle, had assumed he was being kidnapped.

Clashes broke out at Trikora Square, in the centre of the port city, between rival factions using guns, slingshots and home-made bombs.

A military official said fighting only stopped on Monday afternoon after security forces set up roadblocks with barbed wire to divide the warring groups.

According to witnesses at the scene, the troops opened fire with automatic weapons. "Bullets were whizzing over our heads," Oren Murphy, an American aid worker, told the Associated Press news agency.

Scores of shops, as well as Silo church - the largest in the city - and a nearby mosque were burned in Ambon.

Paing Suryaman, a physician at Al Fatah hospital in the Muslim section of town, said 25 bodies had been brought.

Appeal for tolerance

Earlier this month, Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid and Vice-President Megawati Sukarnoputri visited the Moluccan Islands to appeal for peace and religious tolerance.

"This is not just a problem for this region. It is a national issue" he said during his visit.

The Moluccas is one of several violent regions in Indonesia where economic problems and political turmoil have aggravated religious and separatist tensions.

According to official statistics, about 750 people have been killed this year in a series of sectarian clashes in the province, 90 in the less than three weeks since President Wahid's visit.