An Australian navy ship began evacuating expatriates, women and children first, from the Solomon Islands yesterday after fierce jungle fighting between rival ethnic militia sparked by a coup attempt.
As the evacuation began, the South Pacific state's Prime Minister, Mr Bartholomew Ulufa'alu, held at gunpoint since Monday's coup attempt by the Malaita Eagles Force, said he feared for his life when militia burst into his home in the capital Honiara.
A Commonwealth delegation was due in the Solomons at the weekend. It will also visit neighbouring Fiji, where gunmen have held the Prime Minister, Mr Mahendra Chaudhry, and other politicians hostage since a coup attempt on May 19th.
Mr Andrew Nori, leader of the Malaita Eagles, said he would consider a temporary ceasefire against the rival Isatabu Freedom Movement during the Commonwealth visit.
The dispute, which has escalated into the worst violence in the Solomons' 22-year history as an independent state, has simmered since the second World War. The Isatabu militants from Guadalcanal are resentful of migration to their island by Malaitans, who have taken top jobs in Honiara.
Australian defence officials said about 250 people were taken on board HMAS Tobruk, an amphibious landing ship, in the first phase of the operation off Honiara. Australians account for about 700 of the estimated 1,300 foreigners in the Solomons.
The Australian Defence Minister, Mr John Moore, said more people would be taken on board this morning. Most of those who boarded yesterday were women and children from Australia, New Zealand and Canada.
"They seem to be taking most of the women and children on this trip and the men are staying behind," local government official Ms Dorothy Wickham told Australian Broadcasting Corporation radio from Honiara.
A New Zealand frigate was also on the way for the possible evacuation of some 225 New Zealand nationals. Meanwhile, two British MEPs who escaped the islands with gunmen firing at their aircraft said yesterday that international mediation was needed to end the violence.
Mr John Corrie said after flying into the eastern Australian city of Brisbane that the islands had descended into civil war. "I think there is civil war at the moment. You've got a real pressure point there and you need someone in there to keep those people talking."
Mr Corrie and Ms Glenys Kinnock flew out of the Solomons on Wednesday on a small chartered aircraft into nearby Papua New Guinea. Their plane came under fire as it left the airport.
Ms Kinnock suggested the appointment of a Commonwealth envoy for the Pacific to help in the search for a negotiated settlement in the Solomon Islands, which is suffering its worst violence since independence from Britain in 1978.
"We want the international community to engage now and find whatever means possible to bring people together . . . because staring at each other down the barrel of a gun has never solved any crisis, ever," she said.
Fijian chiefs in the nation's western economic heartland who oppose the coup leader, Mr George Speight, said yesterday they wanted self-rule within Fiji and a major change in the traditional tribal power base.
The chiefs stopped short of a complete breakaway but want to administer their own future in the west of the main island of Viti Levu, local media said.
Fiji is in limbo almost three weeks after the coup, with little sign that Mr Speight, who toppled Fiji's Indian-dominated government in the name of indigenous rights, will release his 31 hostages, including Mr Chaudhry. Military leaders refuse to negotiate with him.