Foreigners flee East Timor as new clashes break out
Foreigners fled East Timor today as security forces in the capital Dili fired warning shots in new clashes with students.
The fresh confrontations came a day after a state of emergency was declared as three people died in riots and angry mobs looted shops and burned down the prime minister’s house.
Dili’s airport was crowded today with relatives of UN staff and other foreigners trying to flee. A UN spokesman said it had not ordered an evacuation but was providing two planes for those wanting to leave.
“We are concerned about what happened yesterday,” UN spokesman Brennon Jones said. “It is a sad thing for everyone.”
President Xanana Gusmao has taken to the airwaves to call for calm.
“If you burn people’s houses and steal their possessions, they will leave,” he said. “If they will leave, what is going to happen to us? We will be alone with our poverty, without help, forgotten.”
The unrest in Dili was the worst in East Timor since it became the world’s newest nation in May, and highlighted rising discontent with the government.
Most of East Timor’s 800,000 people are desperately poor and have seen little benefits from independence.
The students fled as the police fired warning shots in the air, leaving the capital mostly deserted today. UN peacekeepers were on the streets with local officers around the parliament and other government buildings.
Schools and businesses were shut, although some shopkeepers spent the day cleaning up after rioters rampaged through Dili, burning and looting shops, homes, hotels and a mosque.
The Hello Mister supermarket, popular with foreigners, was burnt to the ground. The home of Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri was reduced to a pile of rubble.
