Poso (AsiaNews/Agencies) - A Christian man has been killed by decapitation in the latest attack against non-Muslims in the sectarian violence-hit eastern Indonesian town of Poso, police said on Friday.

Residents found a plastic bag containing the head of the 48-year-old village chief late on Thursday in the Poso Pesisir area of Central Sulawesi province, district deputy police chief Rudi Trenggono said.

"We have no suspects at the moment but this could be a personally-motivated case or another attempt to antagonise both Muslim and Christian communities here," he said.

He said a homemade bomb went off in the nearby hills in the area about one hour after the discovery but there were no reports of damage or casualties.

Poso has seen intermittent communal violence between Muslims and Christians since 2000 despite a government-brokered peace accord agreed two years ago.

Thursday's incidents followed the unsolved shooting of a man in the grounds of a church in Poso last month.

Also last month, a Hindu woman was killed and two Christian men wounded when a group fired randomly into houses in the region on the same day that two Christians were hacked to death near the provincial capital Palu.

• indonesia
• christians
• persecution
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• freedom
• human
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• islam
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• violences
• fundamentalism
• pancasila