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Informasikan Situasi Lingkungan Anda
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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CRISIS CENTRE DIOCESE OF AMBOINA
Jalan Pattimura 32 - Ambon 97124 - Indonesia
Tel 0062 (0)911 342195 Fax 0062 (0)911 355337
E-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Ambon, September 9, 2002
THE SITUATION IN AMBON / MOLUCCAS - Report No. 316
1. VICTIMS ON SAPARUA ISLAND AND IN AMBON - In the early morning of
Sunday, September 08, 2002, three young muslims - a girl aged 12, a girl
aged 13 and a pregnant woman teacher aged 27 - were mysteriously killed by
gunfire, while they were looking for edible shells on the shore near their
village of Kulur, island of Saparua. When, later in the morning, their
bodies arrived at the Al-Fatah hospital, Ambon, emotional reaction by a
large crowd of Muslims could not be avoided, especially since the rumour
spread that the culprits were people from Porto, a Christian village twelve
kilometers South-East of Kulur. Consequently several motor-cars with
Christians, passing along the road through the Muslim Galunggung area,
Ambon, were halted by the masses and thrown at with stones. An airport-taxi
driver, Daniel Matulessy, was killed; his body together with his car then
was burned by the frenzied masses. A woman in a preceding car, was wounded.
There is some confusion about whether there were any passengers in Daniel
Matulessy's car. If there were, their fate is unknown.
Meanwhile the Porto village chief, John Aponno, denies any involvement of
Porto residents in the shooting at the beach of Kulur. Local police precinct
chief R.Nussy acknowledged that he simply did not know who could be the
killer. He said he had sent a hundred Brimob police forces to Kulur in order
to bridle any further unrest and to do investigation on the murder.
Christians (and maybe also a number of Muslims) assume that the killer of
the three young people at Kulur is another provocateur, who in this case
apparently succeeded in reawakening the horizontal interreligious conflict
that, for a long time already, had all but been overcome.
Thus a summary of a report by local Siwalima daily newspaper.
Up to now no reaction by Christians has been reported. Last night the sound
of two exploding bombs could be heard in the city of Ambon.
2. SUSPECTS RELEASED - Two people that had been detained as suspects
in connection with the bomb blast at the Lapangan Merdeka field last
September 5, were released by lack of evidence.
C.J.B�hm msc, Crisis Centre Diocese of Amboina
