At least three people have been killed and five injured in a fire blamed on protesters at a regional parliament building in eastern Indonesia, as widespread demonstrations rock the Southeast Asian nation.
Indonesia’s disaster management agency, in a statement on Saturday, confirmed the deaths following the Friday evening fire in Makassar, the capital of South Sulawesi province, some 1,600km (1,000 miles) east of the capital, Jakarta.
“From last night’s incident, three people died. Two died at the scene, and one died at the hospital. They were trapped in the burning building,” the secretary of Makassar city council, Rahmat Mappatoba, told the AFP news agency on Saturday.
He accused protesters of storming the office to set the building on fire.
Indonesia’s official Antara news agency also said the victims were reported to have been trapped in the burning building, while the disaster agency said two of the injured were hurt while jumping out of the building.
Several people injured in the fire are being treated in hospital, officials said.
The fire has since been extinguished.
Indonesia has been rocked by protests across major cities, including Jakarta, since Friday, after footage spread of a motorcycle delivery driver being run over and killed by a police tactical vehicle in earlier rallies over low wages and perceived lavish perks for government officials.
In West Java’s capital city of Bandung, commercial buildings, including a bank and a restaurant, were also reportedly burned on Friday during demonstrations.
In Jakarta, hundreds of demonstrators massed outside the headquarters of the elite Mobile Brigade Corps (Brimob) paramilitary police unit that was blamed for running over motorcycle delivery driver Affan Kurniawan.
Protesters threw stones and firecrackers, and police responded with tear gas as a group tried to tear down the gates of the unit, which is notorious for its heavy-handed tactics.
On Saturday, a local online news site reported that young protesters had massed in Jakarta and were heading to the Brimob headquarters before they were stopped by a barricade.
Police said they had arrested seven officers for questioning in connection with the driver’s death. The number of protesters injured in the violence is reported to be more than 200, according to the Tempo news site.
‘Different than other recent protests’
Juan Robin, a journalist with Narasi, a national media outlet, told Al Jazeera that people’s anger towards the police and the government is burgeoning.
“This is different than other recent protests,” he told Al Jazeera, adding that the police used tear gas on the protesters all day long in the capital on Friday.
“At least seven bus stops in Jakarta were burned down, but it is not clear who did it.” Robin also said there have been unconfirmed reports that “provocateurs” were behind the incidents, not the protesters.
He stressed that although the immediate protests are gradually subsiding, the general mass demonstrations are likely to continue until people’s demands are met.
The protests are the biggest and most violent of Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto’s tenure, and are a key test less than a year into his presidency.
Prabowo has urged calm, ordered an investigation into the unrest, and visited the family of the slain delivery driver, while also warning that the demonstrations “were leading to anarchic actions”.
Jakarta’s mass rapid transit railway said trains were not stopping at one station on Saturday near Friday’s protest site, while the Jakarta province-owned Transjakarta bus service said it was unable to serve customers.
