The death toll in the week-long ethnic bloodshed in Borneo has reached 142, with fears of a further eruption of violence.
An Indonesian warship cap able of carrying 2,000 people was on its way to the central Kalimantan river town of Sampit, at the centre of the trouble, to rescue terrified migrants.
There were reports that some victims had been beheaded and their heads paraded through town. Others were burned to death in the violence between the indigenous Dayaks and Madurese immigrants.
Dayaks were roaming yesterday in search of Madurese, most of whom had taken refuge in makeshift camps in police or government offices in the centre of town.
Officials estimate around 15,000 Madurese have fled Sampit and another 15,000 are crammed in the town centre, some under blue plastic shelters guarded by police and soldiers.
Schools and most shops in Sampit were closed yesterday, although the town market opened under heavy police guard. During the uneasy calm, aid workers opened a temporary field kitchen to feed the refugees.
Food supplies are short. A carload of supplies brought in by journalists from the provincial capital Paland karaya was mobbed soon after it arrived.
This week's ethnic trouble flared as President Abdurrahman Wahid of Indonesia left on a lengthy trip to the Middle East and Africa.
A curfew was imposed in Sampit from 10 p.m. until dawn by the head of the police charged with containing the violence. He said it was still tense and trouble could erupt again.
A police official said there would be two ships to take the Madurese back to Java.
He said many people, neither Dayaks nor Madurese, were too afraid to leave their homes and there were still many bodies on the streets.
Smoke from smouldering buildings could be seen above Sampit from miles away.
Hundreds have died in Indonesian Borneo provinces in the past two years due to unrest between Dayaks and the immigrants, mainly from Madura island, off east Java.
Kalimantan, with a population of 1.5 million people, is Indonesia's only Borneo province where Dayaks are still in a majority. The national police chief has blamed the unrest on two local officials angry at being overlooked for new jobs in a reshuffle after provinces received more autonomy.