The Walisongo School Massacre

On 28 May 2000, during a torrential rainstorm in Central Sulawesi, Indonesia, masked Christian militants descended on a cluster of predominantly Muslim villages around the town of Poso.

By the time the attacks were over, hundreds of Muslims were dead or missing. Villages had been burned to the ground. Men and boys were massacred at the Walisongo Islamic boarding school, women reported widespread sexual violence, and bodies washed up along the Poso River for months.

Official counts put the death toll between 191 and 200, but no precise figure has ever been agreed upon. Mass graves continued to be found years later. The attack, remembered as the Walisongo school massacre, became one of the bloodiest episodes in the sectarian conflict that wracked Poso at the turn of the millennium.

Three leaders of local Christian militias—Fabianus Tibo, Dominggus da Silva, and Marinus (Don Marinus) Riwu—were eventually convicted and executed for their role in the massacre. Many other alleged organizers were never brought to trial.

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A Divided District

The Poso region of Central Sulawesi was sharply divided along religious and geographic lines long before the massacre.

Muslims were concentrated in the coastal towns and villages, bolstered over centuries by Bugis migrants from South Sulawesi and a small community of Arab traders whose descendants held influential positions in Islamic institutions. Christians—mostly indigenous Protestants—lived in the highland towns and interior villages.

In the late twentieth century, Indonesia’s transmigration program added another layer. People from densely populated islands—mostly Muslims from Java and Lombok, and a smaller number from Hindu-majority Bali—were resettled into the district. Many of these new residents moved into what local Christians considered traditional Christian lands.

By the late 1990s, Muslims formed a majority in Poso district. Government figures from 2011 put the Muslim share of the population at about 60 percent. At the same time, key parts of the local economy—especially cocoa production and export—were dominated by migrants, particularly Bugis and Chinese traders.

To many indigenous Christians, this demographic and economic shift felt like marginalization. For years, there had been an informal power-sharing arrangement in Poso’s administration between Christians and Muslims. As Muslims became the majority, Christians feared losing that political balance.

Human Rights Watch later noted that outbreaks of violence in Poso coincided with fierce political competition for local government posts in this economically strategic district. The district secretary’s position, in particular, carried control over lucrative government contracts.

In April 2000, just weeks before the massacre, a dispute over the district secretary job escalated tensions. Local newspapers quoted a member of the provincial assembly warning that greater violence would follow if a candidate named Ladjalani was not appointed. Religious identity and political power were becoming dangerously entangled.

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From Gang Fights to Riots

By early 2000, both Muslim and Christian leaders were accusing Poso’s political elite of exploiting religious differences to secure power. They alleged that certain, unnamed figures in the local government paid thugs to provoke gang fights as part of the struggle over elected offices.

What began as street clashes soon spiraled.

On 17 April 2000, a major riot broke out in Poso. As violence escalated, the local police chief called in a paramilitary police unit from Palu, the provincial capital. According to reports, the unit opened fire on a crowd of rioting Muslim youths, killing three.

The shooting enraged Muslim residents. In the wave of anger that followed, at least 300 Christian homes were torched over the rest of April. Many Christians fled—either to the hill town of Tentena, a Christian stronghold, or to the surrounding hills. Rumors spread that some displaced Christian youths were training with a militia in Kelei.

The cycle of revenge intensified.

On the morning of 24 May 2000, a Christian militia group led by transmigrant Fabianus Tibo killed a policeman and two civilians in central Poso town. Tibo and his men then took refuge in a Catholic church. A furious mob, described as angry Muslim residents, gathered and set the building on fire, but Tibo managed to escape.

Clashes broke out throughout the day in Poso’s Sayo district, injuring at least ten people. The town was sliding toward open sectarian war.

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The Storm and the Blackout

Four days later, the violence reached its most horrifying point.

On 28 May 2000, as heavy rain pounded the region, militants targeted a cluster of Muslim communities around Poso, including the village of Sintuwu Lemba in Lage subdistrict. Sintuwu Lemba was home largely to Javanese Muslim transmigrants, many of them cacao farmers who had previously lived in South Sulawesi.

According to a report compiled by local Islamic academics, some residents, sensing danger, went to the district military command in Kawua to seek protection. They alleged that the subdistrict police chief turned them back, insisting that the situation was safe and they should go home.

That night, Sintuwu Lemba suffered an electricity blackout, which some accounts suggest was deliberately caused by the attackers. Under cover of darkness and rain, masked members of a Christian militia surrounded the village.

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The Walisongo School Killings

As the militants swept into Sintuwu Lemba, they captured many of the village’s women and children and some of the men. Around 70 adult or teenage males fled toward the Pesantren Walisongo, an Islamic boarding school in the village that would later give its name to the massacre.

The school compound, which should have been a sanctuary, became a killing ground.

The men and boys who took refuge there were attacked with small arms fire and hacked with machetes. Estimates vary, but Human Rights Watch and other sources describe mass killing inside the Walisongo compound. Many did not survive.

The brutality around the school mirrored what was happening in other parts of the village and surrounding areas.

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Forced Marches and River Executions

Those captives who were not killed immediately were reportedly bound and forced to march about two kilometers to the Poso River near town. Witnesses later told investigators and journalists that many prisoners—including children and infants—were executed along the way or at the riverbank.

There were reports that, in the aftermath, the Poso River was clogged with bodies. Over the next year and a half, one account stated that some 840 bodies of Muslim residents were recovered from the river and nearby areas during the broader conflict period.

The massacre in Sintuwu Lemba and neighboring villages was not a single, contained incident but part of a coordinated pattern of attack.

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Sexual Violence and Survival

Surviving women later told Human Rights Watch and other investigators that they had been raped by militants and had seen relatives, including children, sexually assaulted.

One woman described witnessing the murders of nine family members, among them her youngest child, a third-grade student. Another survivor, a man who had escaped the slaughter at Walisongo, recounted being captured again four days later, taken to the river for execution, and managing to flee a second time.

These testimonies underscored that the violence was not only about killing but also about terrorizing and humiliating the targeted communities.

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Other Targeted Villages

The tactics used in Sintuwu Lemba appeared in other Muslim-majority villages during this period.

In Tabalo, eight Muslim residents disappeared after assailants gathered the villagers and forced them to march to Kasiguncu township. In another location, at least 14 Muslim transmigrants from Lombok and Java were abducted after roughly 100 masked militants ordered the locals to assemble at the village hall. Witnesses said the attackers had lists of names and trucks ready to transport people.

Some Tabalo residents reported recognizing the militants as local youths from nearby Tangkora and Sanginora—and even from their own village—disguised in black clothing and ski masks. The attackers were described as carrying bamboo spears, machetes, slingshots, and “Ambon arrows,” powerful projectiles made from metal bars.

Meanwhile, anywhere up to 4,000 homes were reported burned across several villages, with Muslim-owned houses specifically targeted. Thousands of Muslims were left homeless or too afraid to stay and fled to majority-Muslim areas nearer to Palu. Local Muslim groups set up refugee camps, including one at the Palu football stadium.

Years later, in mid-2008, some former residents of Sintuwu Lemba were still living in the shells of burned-out houses, with little to no sanitation—a lingering reminder of the destruction.

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State Response and Escalation

Some observers later suggested that the timing of the violence was deliberate. During the massacre, a national Quran reading contest was taking place in Palu, attended by the president and vice president. With attention and security resources concentrated on the event, the attackers may have expected a slower response.

In the immediate aftermath, mobilization for revenge began on the Muslim side as well. Al-Khaira’at, a prominent Islamic educational institution in Eastern Indonesia, was alleged to have procured materials for weapons, distributed machetes, and sent volunteers by truck from Palu to Poso. Witnesses said two truckloads of these recruits fought Christian militias in the village of Tokorondo on 29 May, suffering casualties and then playing a less direct combat role thereafter.

The Indonesian military moved forcefully into the region. The Regional Military Command deployed an additional 1,500 soldiers, ten tanks, and a combat unit, raising the troop presence to three infantry battalions—around 2,200 uniformed soldiers. On 6 June, Christian militias clashed with security forces east of Poso and reportedly sustained heavy casualties.

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Identifying the “Mastermind”

As authorities tried to regain control, attention turned to those believed to be directing the violence.

The provincial governor publicly named Advent L. Lateka, a Protestant figure, as the mastermind behind the massacre and the overall surge in attacks. Lateka never stood trial. On 2 June 2000, he was killed during a day of violent clashes in the Poso neighborhood of Kayamanya that involved hundreds of people.

In mid-July, police arrested 124 Protestants in Kolonedale, southeast of Poso, for carrying weapons—mainly machetes—indicating that armed Christian groups were still mobilized even after the worst of the massacre.

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Trials and Executions

Later in July 2000, three Christian militants originally from East Nusa Tenggara were arrested:

• Fabianus Tibo, a convicted murderer and alleged leader
• Dominggus da Silva
• Don Marinus (Marinus) Riwu

Authorities suspected them of organizing the Walisongo massacre.

In 2001, a three-judge panel heard testimony from 28 witnesses. The court found that:

• Tibo led a Christian militia known as the Red Group
• Da Silva served as one of Tibo’s commanders
• Riwu participated directly in the killings

The defense suggested that Tibo might have been merely a hired thug, not a strategist. The court rejected that framing. All three men were convicted, sentenced to death by firing squad, and eventually executed in September 2006.

During his trial, Tibo named 16 individuals he claimed were the real coordinators of the massacre, including several senior Christian church leaders. Despite these accusations, none of those named were ever charged or brought to court.

The executions of Tibo, da Silva, and Riwu closed one chapter but left many questions about the broader command structure and political backing for the violence unresolved.

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Continuing Cycles of Revenge

The massacre did not end sectarian bloodshed in Poso.

On 3 June 2001, attackers identified as alleged members of the Red Group struck again, this time in the majority-Muslim village of Buyung Katedo. At least 14 people were killed; all but two were women and children. Among the dead were the local mosque’s imam and an infant named Firman.

Violence also flowed in the other direction. In October 2003, Muslim militants were accused of carrying out two massacres against civilians in Central Sulawesi. Eight people were killed in the predominantly Christian villages of Saatu, Pantangolemba, and Pinedampa, and three more died in nearby Morowali regency days earlier. About 30 homes and a church were looted and burned.

The region remained deeply scarred, with distrust and trauma on both sides and a long list of atrocities for which only a handful of people had ever been held accountable.

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Uncounted Dead and Unanswered Questions

More than a decade after the Walisongo school massacre, the full human cost was still unclear.

As of 2011, the total number killed on 28 May 2000 remained uncertain. Bodies were still being discovered in mass graves across Poso regency. Sixty-three unidentified victims were found at the bottom of a ravine near Tagolu village months after the massacre. Another mass grave—believed to contain more victims from Sintuwu Lemba—was unearthed in May 2006, reportedly based on information revealed during the trial of the three executed militants.

Official estimates place the death toll from the 28 May attacks between 191 and 200. Muslim sources often cite a figure of 191, though Human Rights Watch and others note that only 39 bodies were initially recovered from three mass graves and that the real number is believed to be higher—“equal to or below” the commonly cited totals.

What is beyond dispute is that the Walisongo school massacre marked a devastating peak in the Poso conflict: a coordinated, sectarian onslaught that destroyed villages, shattered families, and left a legacy of grief that outlasted both the fighting and the trials that followed.

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