Reports say 19 killed in Indonesia market blast

JAKARTA - An explosion rocked a market place in the troubled eastern Indonesian town of Tentena on Saturday, killing 19 people, El Shinta radio quoted police as saying.

Tentena, on the island of Sulawesi, is part of a region where clashes between Muslims and Christians broke out in the late 1990s and raged for several years, killing 2,000 people.

"Based on data provided by the Central Sulawesi police, so far 19 people have died," El Shinta, Indonesia's top news radio station, reported.

One caller to El Shinta said the market was crowded at the time of the blast, which follows sporadic bouts of violence in the region in the past six months. Police could not immediately be reached for comment.

Much of the past Sulawesi violence focused on Poso, which is about 1,500 km northeast of Jakarta. The fighting at the time also attracted Islamic militants linked to al Qaeda.

Tentena lies to the south of Poso.

Some 85 per cent of Indonesia's 220 million people are Muslim. In some eastern parts, such as the Poso area, Christian and Muslim populations are about equal in size.

- REUTERS