Religious violence sweeps Indonesian islands

Gangs of Muslims and Christians clashed in Indonesia yesterday as mobs set fire to houses and a church, leaving at least 14 people dead in two days of violence in the eastern Maluku islands.

Police rushed reinforcements to the provincial capital Ambon, where at least 10 people were killed on Sunday and up to 100 injured.

Yesterday, four of the injured died and 20 were wounded, hospital officials said.

The new fighting comes as politicians campaign for presidential elections in July. It is shaping up as one of the bloodiest outbreaks of violence in the Malukus since a peace deal in 2002 that ended two years of religious violence in which 9000 people perished.