Eight are killed as Muslims and Buddhists fight

Muslim and Buddhist refugees from Burma have clashed at a refugee camp in Indonesia in a riot in which eight people were killed and 15 were wounded.

Rioters used wooden sticks, knives and iron bars to attack each other during a two-hour clash at an immigration centre in Sumatra island, local media said, quoting police. More than 20 Burmese nationals were arrested.

The riot broke out after a Rohingya Muslim cleric and a Buddhist fisherman got into a heated debate about sectarian violence that erupted last month in central Burma when mobs of armed Buddhists torched Muslim-owned homes and shops.

At least 43 people were killed and 13,000 people were left homeless in the violence.

That followed two eruptions of violence last year in Rakhine state in western Burma, which officially killed 110 people and displaced 120,000, most of them stateless Rohingya Muslims.