reports of heavy fighting between the military and rebels, Christians said.
International Christian rights group Voice Of the Martyrs Australia (VOMA) told BosNewsLife that Chris and Margaret Smith are forced to stay within the confines of their house in the capital Dili following battles in which dozens of people were killed or injured.
"There was a confrontation some distance from them…across the river and beyond the airport," said VOMA, which has close contacts with evangelicals in the Southeast Asian nation.
"The military has closed the area" amid reports that "as many as 20 people are dead, dozens injured and probably scores of buildings damaged or destroyed," VOMA said.
TROOPS DISMISSED
Reports of the fighting came shortly after troops dismissed from East Timor’s army threatened to wage a new guerrilla war in East Timor. Thousands reportedly joined a protest rally April 24, organized by the nearly 600 sacked soldiers in Dili, roughly a third of the armed forces.
The former soldiers from the country’s west were sacked after they protested against alleged favored treatment given to troops from the east, a key center of resistance to the Indonesian occupation before East Timor became independent in 2002.
Speaking on Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) former Lieutenant Gastao Salsinha, a spokesman for the group, said he is now in a secret location in the mountains with 100 men.
NO SURRENDER
Salsinha said he has no intention of heeding Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri’s call to surrender because government forces "killed many men, women and children in the past few days." The violence was the worst to rock East Timor since its vote for independence from Indonesia in 1999.
Fighting with the Indonesian army killed about 1,400 Timorese and forcibly pushed 300,000 people into West Timor as refugees, according to US officials. Evangelicals are in the crossfire. While 90 percent of East Timor’s roughly one million people are Roman Catholic, evangelical and traditional Protestant Christians comprise up to 3 percent of the population, according to estimates.
Conditions in Dili were reportedly somewhat calmer Tuesday, May 2, and VOMA said it was hoping that the missionary couple it supports would "soon be able to continue their evangelistic ministry." VOMA said it had urged supporters to pray "for all Christians in East Timor, for their witness and protection."
SUSPECTS DETAINED
Meanwhile some 101 suspects accused of involvement in the deadly riots in East Timor were being detained after 25 more arrests were made, the foreign ministry said on Tuesday, May 2.
Thirteen of those held were among the nearly 600 sacked soldiers, who deserted the army in February complaining of discrimination and were sacked in March, the ministry reportedly said, adding that the "Ombudsman will have unrestricted access to all detainees." (With reporting from East Timor and BosNewsLife Research).
