AMBON, Indonesia : Twenty-two people have been killed and scores badly injured in a major outbreak of Muslim-Christian violence in the eastern Indonesian city of Ambon, medical staff said.

The violence which flared Sunday after a parade by Christian separatists was the worst since a pact in February 2002 ended three years of sectarian fighting in which some 5,000 people died.

Hundreds of extra police and troops have been rushed to the waterfront city in the Maluku islands.

Rivai Ambon, director of Al Fatah hospital, told AFP Monday that 15 people had died at his hospital or had been brought in dead since Sunday. Six of them died Monday, he said, and 60 others were still receiving treatment.

Tikauli, an official with the Maluku branch of the Indonesian Red Cross, said after visiting Bakti Rahayu hospital that five people had died or were brought there already dead since Sunday.

She said one man with a gunshot wound was brought in Monday.

A nurse at Haulussy hospital said there were no further deaths besides two who died Sunday of bullet wounds. Another person died of a heart attack. But three people were admitted Monday, one of them severely injured.

Maluku provincial police chief Bambang Sutrisno said 121 people were badly injured.

The UN mission, a large hotel and a church were among several buildings set ablaze during Sunday's riot, when gangs armed with machetes and other weapons took to the streets.

Residents said the city was quieter Monday after intermittent early-morning blasts and gunshots.

But an AFP correspondent said occasional shots and explosions could still be heard at 1:30 pm (0430 GMT) in the Tanah Lapang Kecil area, a mixed Muslim-Christian area facing Ambon Bay in the city's southwest.

The Indonesian Christian university there was ablaze, a witness said. Residents had mostly fled the area and taken refuge in safer areas.

With many streets either barricaded or too dangerous to use, residents were again forced to use motorboats to traverse the divided city. Others used winding hilly roads.

"We seem to be back now to the same conditions as at the beginning of the conflict in 1999. The Christians remain in their sector and the Muslims remain in theirs," said Olin Tutamahu, an employee at the newly-renovated local UN mission.

"There is a clear demarcation line and no one crosses it either way."

Muslim and Christian residents, some armed with machetes and sticks, stood guard in their respective areas. Only a few stalls were open to sell essentials.

The AFP correspondent said fires hit at least five areas, including two refugee settlements of Airmata Cina and Tawake.

Soldiers and police were out in force in the main border area between Christian and Muslim sectors but were stretched thin elsewhere.

Some 200 paramilitary police reinforcements flew in from Jakarta Monday morning. Provincial police chief Sutrisno said 200 more would arrive in addition to one army battalion.

Maluku military spokesman Major Paiman said the army's three existing battalions in Ambon were on alert.

"The situation is now much calmer. There is still smoke, especially from the border area but the occasional shots are no longer heard," he said in mid-morning.

Sunday's violence followed a banned parade by mainly Christian separatists of the Maluku Sovereignty Front to mark the 54th anniversary of the proclamation of a self-styled South Maluku Republic.

They traded jeers, insults and stones with mainly Muslim opponents.

Police escorting the convoy were stoned by a mainly Muslim crowd and fired shots in response, residents and newspapers said. Muslim-Christian street battles then broke out.

Islamic militants from elsewhere in Southeast Asia arrived to fuel the original conflict, which began in January 1999 after a trivial argument between a bus driver and a passenger from separate faiths.

The head of a hardline Jakarta-based Islamic organisation threatened Monday to send thousands of fighters.

Husein Al-Habsyi, head of Ikhwanul Muslimin, said he and the Front for the Defenders of Islam "have agreed to send 7,000 jihad (holy war) fighters to Ambon."

They would take over from the police "who have killed our children there."

A state of emergency was lifted last September. Local authorities and United Nations officials had been working to achieve reconciliation.

- AFP