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Bloody ethnic violence rages on in Borneo
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SAMPIT, Indonesia--Asyrini and her family were about a kilometer from a makeshift refugee camp when a mob of screaming, machete-wielding men caught up with them.
“You people don't belong here,” she recalled one of the men growling at her family, which migrated to this town in south-central Borneo from another Indonesian island more than a decade ago.
She said the man had threatened to turn them into a dish of grilled meat on a stick.
Moments later, the men, members of a native ethnic group known as the Dayak, set upon her brother, beheading him and holding up his head as a trophy before marching off in search of other families from Asyrini's homeland, the island of Madura, off northeastern Java, about 500 kilometers, or about 310 miles, south of Sampit.
By the end of the day last Thursday, Dayak fighters had beheaded and hacked to death scores of Madurese migrants, including women and young children, in one of the most savage outbreaks of ethnic violence to strike Indonesia in recent years.
The violence continued on Sunday as thousands of Dayaks armed with knives and homemade spears scoured the province of Kalimantan Tengah (Central Kalimantan) to rid the area of Madurese. Bands of whooping Dayaks burned scores of homes belonging to families from Madura, reducing entire villages to charred wastelands and forcing tens of thousands of migrants to flee.
Local officials said at least 270 people had been slaughtered in the province since the fighting between the rival groups erupted on Feb. 18. Officials said they feared that the death toll could reach 1,000.
Caption: Madurese of all ages crowding into a makeshift refugee shelter on Sunday in Sampit, Indonesia. They were fleeing from attacks by armed Dayaks.
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