DILI - Frightened Timorese packed churches to pray for peace on Sunday, but gangs allied to feuding police or army units continued to rampage through the capital, evading foreign peacekeeping troops and torching homes and vehicles.
As night fell, smoke was still billowing above several neighborhoods in Dili as the gangs, which identify with army factions from either the east or west of this tiny nation, marked out their territories with makeshift barricades and roadblocks and took revenge on rivals.
Antonio Caleres Junior, director of the city's main hospital, said 20 people had died there in the last week -- 14 from gun shot wounds and six from burn injuries. He was unaware of casualties that his hospital had not treated.
Australian troops, part of a 2,000-plus multinational deployment following the East Timor government's appeal for help, stepped up patrols in the capital but still appeared to hold back from directly engaging the rampaging gangs.
They were backed by small patrols of Malaysian and New Zealand troops.
"Why aren't the Australians doing anything?" asked one youth, manning a barricade on the main road leading from the airport.
"It's a trickier operation than some people think," Australian Prime Minister John Howard told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. on Sunday. "Nobody should assume that it's just a simple walk-in-the-park military operation -- it's quite challenging."
The commander of the Australian troops said soldiers were concentrating on disarming factions of the military and gangs.
"We will detain anyone who is suspected of having undertaken or participated in a fight," Brigadier Mick Slater told reporters. "We will be disarming everybody in Dili."
Looters
Hundreds of Timorese looted a World Food Program warehouse, taking huge bags of rice after disrupting an attempt to distribute supplies to women.
They were ordered to drop the bags by patrolling Australian soldiers, but when the troops were called to another disturbance the looters carried on where they left off.
Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri, whose foot-dragging over a dispute by disgruntled soldiers is said by many Timorese and diplomats to have been the cause of the trouble, said on Saturday that it would take time for the Australians to restore order.
Around 600 of the 1,400-strong Timorese army rebelled in April after they were dismissed for protesting over what they said was discrimination against soldiers from the west of the country. Most military leaders are said to come from the east.
The police force has also virtually disintegrated, but an elite Australian-trained special forces unit is believed to be loosely allied to the disgruntled soldiers.
On Sunday, thousands of Timorese prayed for peace in Dili's dozens of churches, with priests calling for calm.
"In Jesus's name, urge your brothers and cousins to stop the fighting," said Father Antonio Gomez at Santo Carlo church in the city centre.
There has been no sign that feuding factions of the armed forces have clashed since soldiers killed nine policemen last week, and most of the violence and clashes now taking place seems stoked by youth gangs.
East Timor is one of the world's poorest nations and massive unemployment has seen the formation of dozens of gangs whose sole aims seem to be to practise martial arts and fight turf wars -- regardless of the political situation.
But some residents say the rebellion has turned into a protest against Alkatiri's government which they accuse of failing to deliver any economic or social development since Timor became an independent state in 2002.
An election is scheduled for early next year, but some diplomats say the government cannot last that long.
A Portuguese colony for centuries, East Timor was annexed by Indonesia in 1976 in a move the United Nations condemned and much of the population resisted.
Australia led a U.N.-backed intervention force to East Timor in 1999 to quell violence by pro-Indonesian militias after a referendum vote for independence. This was finally achieved in 2002 after almost three years of U.N. administration.
Apart from some coffee production, East Timor has virtually no economy but has signed lucrative oil and gas exploration deals for the Timor Sea.
Feeds