At least 19 people were killed on Saturday in two bomb attacks in the Indonesian province of Central Sulawesi, police said.
The successive blasts took place in the town of Tentena at a busy street market, said Wayan, a police officer from the neighbouring town of Poso.
”A team of investigators is already in Tentena to investigate the case,” he said by telephone.
More than 20 others were wounded and have been taken to a hospital in Tentena, said Wayan, who like many Indonesians uses only one name.
A hospital worker at Tentena’s GSKT hospital said it has ”limited medical supplies and experts” to handle the injured residents.
”We need blood bags and medicine because many of the wounded are losing blood and need immediate attention,” said the worker, who declined to be named.
National police chief Da’i Bachtiar, who was visiting the neighbouring province of South Sulawesi on Friday, left for the predominantly Christian town of Tentena immediately after the blasts were reported.
The bombings are the most serious in a long series of bombings and other attacks in the region, many of them against Christians.
A report last year by the International Crisis Group blamed many of the Christian deaths in Poso on Mujahidin Kompak, an outfit with loose affiliations to the Jemaah Islamiyah regional extremist group, which authorities say has some ties to al-Qaeda.
Earlier this month, Police in Poso said they arrested three Muslim extremists for their alleged involvement in a recent bombing at an NGO’s office. There were no casualties.
The three extremists told police that their mission was to wage a jihad, or holy war, in the province to highlight the plight of Muslims worldwide.
Among attacks last year, a Hindu woman was killed and two Christian men were wounded when a group of attackers fired randomly into houses in Poso region.
On the same day in a rural district south of the provincial capital, Palu, to the west of Poso, two Christians died in a machete attack.
Last May, a Christian prosecutor who handled terrorism cases was assassinated in Palu.
In July, gunmen sprayed bullets into a Palu church, killing a woman priest and injuring four other people.
In the worst bloodshed of 2003, armed gangs in October killed 10 people in attacks on mainly Christian villages.
Authorities say Jemaah Islamiyah is behind attacks in Indonesia, including the October 2002 Bali bombings, last year’s Jakarta Marriott hotel suicide attack, and a deadly blast outside the Australian embassy in Jakarta last month. — Sapa-AFP