Thousands trapped as Borneo killings continue

A soldier holds a club confiscated from one of the roaming Dayak mobs

SAMPIT, Indonesia -- Thousands of refugees are continuing to arrive in the port town of Sampit in Indonesian Borneo desperate to escape the ethnic bloodshed that officials say has now left at least 270 people dead.

Scenes of chaos have been reported with refugees fighting each other to get on board some of the few boats leaving the area.

About 2,500 people managed to pile aboard an Indonesian navy warship that arrived to join the evacuation Sunday, but it was only the second such vessel to reach Sampit and thousands more remain trapped in squalid makeshift camps.

Further evacuation vessels are expected to arrive in Sampit in the coming days.

Meanwhile gangs of indigenous ethnic Dayaks armed with spears and machetes are continuing to roam the streets hunting down migrants from the island of Madura they say have taken over their land.

Violence spreading

Sampit Mayor Mohamed Wahyudi said the killings, which had initially been confined to the city area, had now spread further afield and it was not clear how many people had died in outlying villages.

	QUOTE
"My two children are dead. They cut their heads off. They slaughtered my husband and dragged his body through the streets " - Suriya Fauzi, refugee

One doctor at a local hospital said he believed that hundreds more may have been killed and a Dayak leader, Christopel Hutte, was quoted as saying that his men had killed more than 1,000 Madurese settlers.

Hutte said the killings would continue until all Madurese had fled Central Kalimantan province.

No protection

Gangs armed with machetes and spears continue to bring terror to the streets

Further military and police reinforcements are expected to arrive in the town on Sunday, but many refugees have complained that so far the security forces have done little or nothing to protect them.

"My two children are dead," said Suriya Fauzi, a refugee waiting to be evacuated.

"They cut their heads off. They slaughtered my husband and dragged his body through the streets. The police and army did nothing. They let this happen."

However police officials say they have already arrested about 80 people and are doing their best to stem the bloodshed.

Also expected to arrive in the area Sunday is Indonesia's chief security minister, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, accompanied by national military commander Admiral Widodo and police chief Bimantoro.

The visit will mark the first high-level response by the Indonesian government to the violence that has forced an estimated 40,000 to flee their homes.

Wahid criticized

Thousands have been forced to flee their homes by the fighting

Critics of embattled President Abdurrahman Wahid , who is on a 15-day tour to the Middle East and Africa, have denounced him for leaving the country in the midst of the violence, accusing him of ignoring the bloodshed.

Wahid has said little about the violence during his trip and Vice President Megawati Sukarnoputri, who is in charge during Wahid's two-week absence, has also made few public remarks.

Over the past 40 years, tens of thousands of people, mostly from the island of Madura near Java, have resettled to Borneo in central Kalimantan province.

The government transmigration program that brought them there was designed to relieve overcrowding in other areas, but it has sparked resentment among the indigenous Dayak.

The violence is the latest in a series of bloody outbreaks of ethnic fighting in Kalimantan.

In the past several years, hundreds have died in clashes in the area, most sparked by land disputes between Dayaks and Madurese.

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