At least three people were injured when ethnic Malay residents clashed with Madurese refugees in the strife-torn capital of Indonesia's West Kalimantan province, a military officer said Monday.
The clash, which broke out on Monday afternoon, took place after scores of Malay residents taunted several Madurese refugees who refused to be evacuated from a sports hall in Pontianak, a military policeman said.
"Three people, all male refugees, were injured after the refugees fired home made weapons on the ethnic Malay residents," Chief Corporal Maryono (eds: one name), from Pontianak military police headqaurters, told AFP.
He said some among the Malay crowd outside fired back, injuring three refugees.
"The situation around the sports hall is still quite tense ... but police and military troops are now calming both camps," Maryono said, adding that the injured had been taken to the Sudarso general hospital.
The clash took place as Pontianak authorities began moving the Madurese refugees from centres in the city to new resettlement areas.
A staff member at the mayor's information office, who identified herself as Nur, told AFP there were around 63,000 Madurese refugees living in barracks in four sports halls in Pontianak.
The refugees were being relocated by truck to Tebang Kacang and Sungai Asam, 17 kilometers (27 miles) east of Pontianak.
The evacuation started after angry residents stormed the barracks on Sunday following an attempted robbery, believed to have been carried out by Madurese refugees, left a six-year-old boy dead Saturday night.
Some of the refugees though refused to be evacuated from Pontianak, police spokesman Senior Commissioner Suhadi (eds: one name) said.
"We have the troops and the trucks ready to help the refugees but many of them refused to move out of the compound ... we have no idea of their reasons for doing so," Suhadi told AFP by telephone.
Pontianak Mayor Buchari Rachman told the SCTV private television station that West Kalimantan officials had prepared around 2,000 small houses for the refugees to occupy in the Sungai Asam area.
He also said that because of the proximity to Pontianak, the refugees could still commute daily to the provincial capital for work.
Kalimantan, the Indonesian part of Borneo island also shared by Malaysia and Brunei, has seen repeated outbreaks of ethnic violence.
Indigenous Dayak tribes have long resented the commercial dominance of ethnic Madurese, relocated to Kalimantan largely through the government-sponsored transmigration program designed to move residents from crowded areas to thinly-populated regions.
Violent attacks on Madurese by Dayaks, backed by ethnic Malaysin West Kalimantan in 1999, left 3,000 people dead and tens of thousands of migrants displaced – JAKARTA (AFP)
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