Six Christians have been killed, and more are feared dead, in attacks by unidentified armed men on three villages in Indonesia's Central Sulawesi province, police said today.
The attacks, near the town of Poso some 1,600 kilometres northeast of Jakarta on Saturday night, come a day after the killing of two Christians and the burning of a church and about 30 houses in another village by gunmen, according to police.
The latest attacks on mostly Christian villages near Poso have raised fears of a resurgence of religious violence in the region where some 2,000 people have died in clashes since 1999.
About 85 per cent of Indonesia's 210 million people are Muslim. The rest are mostly Christian, Hindu and animist.
The attacks have come after months of relative calm in Sulawesi. The area was wracked by violence in 2001 and 2002 and became a training ground for many Muslim militants.