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Violence kills 270
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Thousands of desperate refugees fought for space on evacuation ships from Sampit, a town in Borneo yesterday as the official death toll from a week of ethnic bloodshed rose to 270, and the violence spread to the provincial capital and other townships.
"I can see smoke rising here," a policeman in Palangkaraya, the Central Kalimantan provincial capital of Palangkaraya, 220 kilometres (136 miles) northeast of the devastated river town of Sampit said.
He said more than 10 homes of Madurese settlers were in flames, torched by Dayak mobs, but that they were empty, abandoned earlier in the week by Madurese fearful that the Sampit violence would spread.
In Samuda, 40 kilometres south of Sampit, foreign journalists were told by a village chief that at least 15,000 Madurese had fled fresh killings there, and were hiding in the jungles.
The journalists, who had driven to Samuda from Sampit, saw beheaded corpses on the road on their return journey that had not been there in the morning.
The state Antara news agency, citing information gathered from various sources and its own observations, said the death toll could reach 400.
It said headless, decomposed bodies were scattered in many corners of Sampit.
Sampit administration chief Mohamed Wahyudi said the official death toll in the violence which erupted a week ago had risen to 270.
At least 10,000 frantic refugees, many hungry and traumatized by a week of beheadings by marauding Dayak tribesmen, were still awaiting evacuation, Wahyudi said.
As the violence spread, the first official delegation from Jakarta to visit Sampit -- chief security minister Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, armed forces Admiral Widodo Adisucipto -- flew into the devastated town by helicopter, an AFP photographer said.
Yudhoyono called it a "human tragedy".
Another ship arrived later yesterday.
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