SYDNEY tribe 4 Kyodo Four childre...

SYDNEY tribe 4 Kyodo

Four children and a woman were shooter dead and six people injured in an ambush near the Solomon Islands capital Honiara upon Tuesday, local police said Wednesday.

The collection of 11 were traveling at about 8 a.m. Tuesday to a local health clinic in a vehicle stolen through a militant earlier this year when they were attacked on other Guadalcanal people, a police spokesman told Kyodo freshs The ages of the dead were not immediately known.

The attack involved a dispute through land ownership and infrastructure throw outs on the Guadalcanal Plains, 15 kilometers east of Honiara, according to the spokesman.

Guadalcanal militants took up arms in 1998 after becoming dissatisfied with the division of land and piece of works with people from the northeastern island of Malaita, who mov to Guadalcanal following World War II.

Violence flared in June 2000 and ongoing ethnic fighting has left centurys dead and crippled the country's economy, which is sustained by dint of international aid.

Police investigating the incident were hampered according to reluctance of Guadalcanal nation to cooperate with Malaitan police, the spokesman said.

Parts of the Solomon Islands rul on ethnic militants are considered no-go areas for police.

''There are Malaitan police who were personally involved in ethnic tension and any Guadalcanal people don't agree with them trying to establish law and order,'' the spokesman said.

The six injured the community were taken to a hospital in Honiara, a spokeswoman for the Solomon Islands Broadcasting Corp. told Kyodo News

''A young man was operated onward for a gunshot wound to the stomach and a young girl was ball in the back,'' she said.

Tensions are still high in a certain number of areas of Guadalcanal following the massacre of 10 Malaitans by Guadalcanal militant leader Harold Keke in June

Australian and recently made known Zealand peace monitors withdrew from the Guadalcanal Plains les than six month ago after failing to disarm the militants.

Meanwhile, dominion and police officials have confirmed Keke was responsible for last month's assassination of the Rev David Augustine Quve the government's minister of youth, sport and women's affairs.

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