Muslim raiders attacked a Christian village on the island of Saparua in Indonesia's troubled Maluku islands on Saturday, killing one person and wounding 27 others, a Christian source there said.
The attackers, who arrived at the village of Bia by speedboat, were armed with mortars, rocket launchers and rifles, Sammy Weileruni, a lawyer working with the Maranatha church in Ambon told AFP by phone from nearby Ambon city.
Weileruni said that according to reports he had received by shortwave radio, two mobile brigade policemen stationed in Bia to protect the villagers were among those wounded in the attack.
"This morning the Muslims from the village of Kulur, assisted by residents of other Muslim villages attacked Bia. They came by speedboat," he said.
He quoted the radio reports as saying that Saparua "outsiders" were among the assailants.
The attack on Saparua island -- located about six miles from Ambon, the capital city of the Maluku islands -- was the second in two days on Christian villages there.
In the first attack on Friday, two villagers died when Muslims from Iha village attacked two Christian villages, Nolot and Ihamahu, according to Weileruni.
Police in Ambon were not immediately available to confirm the report.
Of the 20 villages on Saparua, 17 are Christian and only three Muslim.
Christian islanders fear the recent attacks are the beginning of a drive to get them off the island, Weileruni said.
The Malukus, also known as the Spice Islands, have been devastated by 19 months of bloody fighting between Muslims and Christians which have left some 4,000 people dead and created more than half a million refugees.
The fighting was triggered by a trivial dispute between a Muslim and a Christian in Ambon in January of 1999, and rapidly spread to the surrounding islands --JAKARTA, (AFP) -
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