Indonesia's ethnic Chinese community, so often the target of mob violence in the predominantly Muslim nation, is counting the cost once more after three days of riots in the city of Medan.
Weeks of student protests in Medan against President Suharto and the country's economic crisis deteriorated into riots this week after the government announced petrol, transport and electricity price rises in line with reforms agreed with the International Monetary Fund.
Mobs of thousands roamed the streets, setting vehicles ablaze and looting and burning shops and warehouses, most of them owned by ethnic Chinese.
Medan's Waspada newspaper quoted hospital sources as saying six people were killed, at least four of them ethnic Chinese trapped in burning shops or houses.
The army chief and Defence Minister, Gen Wiranto, said yesterday nobody had died. Ethnic Chinese sources reported more than 10 dead and said at least 1,000 businesses belonging to members of the community had been looted or burned.
Medan, a commodities trading city of two million people, was comparatively peaceful yesterday, although there were sporadic looting attempts. Muslim separatist rebels in northern Sumatra have a long history of defiance of rule from Jakarta, the capital of the island of Java.
Indonesia's anti-communist pogrom of the mid-1960s was one of the worst massacres in modern world history. Hundreds of thousands, some say more than half a million, suspected communists, many of them ethnic Chinese, were killed after what the government called a failed coup by the nowbanned communist party.
Over the past few days, many of Medan's ethnic Chinese have fled abroad or sought refuge in city hotels. Airport officials say flights out of Medan to Singapore and Malaysia are fully booked. Ethnic Chinese carrying hastily-packed plastic bags of belongings could be seen checking into city hotels.
"If you're rich, you leave the country," said Mr Sofyan Tan. "If you are comparatively well off, you go to a hotel. If you are poor, you stay and fight."
Ethnic Chinese are an easy target in Indonesia because of their visible affluence and control of the retail trade. They make up only a fraction of the population of 200 million people, but dominate its commerce. Many Indonesians also view them as being sympathetic to the Suharto government, especially because some of the president's closes allies are affluent ethnic Chinese businessmen.