- Title: EAST TIMOR: REFUGEES SLOWLY RETURN TO DECIMATED CITY OF SUAI
- Date: 8th October 1999
- Summary: SUAI, EAST TIMOR (OCTOBER 8, 1999) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 1. WS PARTLY CONSTRUCTED CATHEDRAL 0.07 2. CATHEDRAL TILT FROM ROOF TO GROUND 0.14 3. VARIOUS OF BLOOD ON STAIRS (2 SHOTS) 0.23 4. CU BLOOD ON CANE 0.25 5. CU BLOOD ON GROUND 0.29 6. SV CROSS IN WINDOW 0.34 7. SV GUSMAO POSTER 0.38 8. MV MAN SIFTING
- Embargoed: 23rd October 1999 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: SUAI, EAST TIMOR
- Country: Indonesia
- Reuters ID: LVA29XMFDZ4GST1SSFD1UI7SQFO2
- Story Text: Refugees are slowly returning to the decimated city of
Suai, where hundreds are believed to have died in pro-Jakarta
militia attacks.
An air of desolation hung over the former pro-Jakarta
militia stronghold of Suai in East Timor on Friday (October 8)
as refugees began trickling back to their homes, encouraged by
the arrival of Australian-led multinational troops.
Suai, once a town of about 36,000 people, is
comprehensively destroyed, like virtually every other
settlement in East Timor.
Ave Maria Suai, the Roman Catholic church on the top of
the hill overlooking the town was not spared the militia
torch.Several thousand refugees were camped around the
church and its school buildings on September 4 when the
referendum results were announced and violence began in
earnest.
Those refugees had already been driven from their homes
in outlying areas by militia attacks.
Locals say that shortly after Sunday mass on September
5, a group of militiamen and Indonesian army personnel, with
an Indonesian policeman, drove up and opened fire on a crowd
which was standing in the open outside the church.
They said two priests and an unknown number of
worshippers were killed.
One man said that after the mass the priest, Father
Marteo, had told them not to worry or be scared, because if
the people were scared there would be no security, so the
people stayed in the church to be safe, but the militia and
the TNI came and killed them.
Another man said that they were with other refugees in
the church where people were already hiding, the milita then
attacked them in the church.
There were no signs of bodies in the church grounds but
a huge smear of dried blood covered the corner of one
classroom in the church school.
Outside the door to that classroom lay the upper half of
a human jaw with the teeth intact.
Like the rest of the compound, the refugee camp which
people fled on September 5 was burned to the ground.
The half-built cathedral rising on the site looked
little different from the other buildings in the compound
except that it had not been burned.
However, the upper storeys of the cathedral tower where
refugees had been sheltering showed many pools of dried blood
and the latticework bamboo scaffolding also had bloodstains on
it, suggesting there had been violence there, too.
The multinational force, known as INTERFET
(International Force for East Timor), swept through Suai on
Wednesday (October 6), chasing out militia and confiscating
their weapons.
Reports said the multinational force fired shots in the
city after militiamen tried to run an INTERFET roadblock set
up on the outslirts of the city.
The militia later mounted an ambush on an INTERFET convoy
west of Suai that day.Two Australian soldiers were wounded
and two militiamen were killed in the clash.
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