A versão da UN...

ABC - Wednesday, 25 October , 2006 18:30:00
Transcript PM Programme

Two dead in East Timor violence

Reporter: Anne Barker

MARK COLVIN: At least two people are confirmed dead in a new outbreak of violence in East Timor.

Fighting between rival groups just outside the capital forced the closure of Dili's airport this morning.

Flights in and out of the country were stopped until international forces could restore calm.

The UN says it's had reports of several casualties, but it's unclear how many. United Nations spokesman Adrian Edwards spoke to Anne Barker a short time ago.

ADRIAN EDWARDS: This situation in and around the airport still seems to be fairly unstable. Early this afternoon things calmed down, then I think there was fighting once again out on the street.

Right at the moment latest reports are it's calmed, but it's not, as you can tell stable, it seem to be on again, off again, we do at this stage have reports of two confirmed fatalities.

The exact circumstances of the deaths aren't known. And that's something we need to investigate and find out.

ANNE BARKER: What do you know about any other injuries?

ADRIAN EDWARDS: We don't know anything with certainty on that, we've seen probably like 15 reports of people being injured, and some brought to the hospital.

We've also heard reports of possible other fatalities, but those are not confirmed at the moment. We are waiting to see, once we get a clearer picture of events.

But right at the moment I think the operations to bring it under control are ongoing. So, we should have a clearer picture once the picture once the situation hopefully calms.

ANNE BARKER: Who exactly is fighting?

ADRIAN EDWARDS: Again, difficult to identify. It does appear from all that we can see, that it's martial arts groups who are quite frequently involved in some disturbances in and around Dili.

It's quite close to a refugee camp near the airport as I mentioned, and so it's difficult to distinguish whether people are from one of these groups or from the camp itself.

But that seems to be the nature of it; it does seem to be battling between gangs, rather than something possibly more insidious.

ANNE BARKER: And do you know what they are fighting about?

ADRIAN EDWARDS: We don't. There's been, however, over the last few weeks there've been a number of incidences, murders and then revenge murders between different groups around the capital.

It could be related to that, but I think it's rather than speculate again…this is something we are going to wait and clarify once things have calmed to a point where it can be properly investigated and looked into.

ANNE BARKER: We did hear reports of an Australian soldier opening fire on a civilian man, some time this afternoon.

What do you know about that?

ADRIAN EDWARDS: I've heard the same reports as yourself, that soldiers had opened fire on a man who pointed a gun at them, and he'd fled. What happened, again, wasn't spelled out.

ANNE BARKER: How much worse is today's incident than these sporadic violence that has sort of wracked Dili in recent weeks?

ADRIAN EDWARDS: Well, you know, again, to set it in context, this is not a repetition of what happened earlier this year. It doesn't look that way at the moment, it looks a bit more localised, and you know, this is in an area around the airport rather than spread throughout the capital.

It is, I think, reasonably fair to say at this stage, it's probably the most serious of the events we've seen over the past days here. And the numbers involved, which are in several hundreds reports do seem to be quite high.

ANNE BARKER: How long would you expect the airport to remain closed?

ADRIAN EDWARDS: It's hard to predict. We obviously are all hoping that it will be reopened for business as normal tomorrow, but I'm hesitant to predict while the situation is still ongoing.

MARK COLVIN: Adrian Edwards from the UN in Dili, speaking to Anne Barker.

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