Three unidentified gunmen raided a church in the troubled region of Poso on Saturday night, injuring seven people, including a 4-year old girl.

The gunmen fired a hail of bullets at a massive gathering attending an Easter sermon, according to the daily Jakarta Post here Sunday.

The latest raid took place just two weeks following two bloody shootings in the region, one of which killed a clergyman.

A local security source said the latest shooting happened at 7:15 p.m. local time at the Tabernacle church in Kilo, Poso Pesisir, some 12 kilometers west of downtown Poso. Soon after the fatal raid, some 200 Mobile Brigade police had been deployed in Kilo to search for the gunmen.

However, local police could not confirm whether the incident was related to the two previous shootings two weeks ago.

Poso, a religiously divided town in Central Sulawesi province, witnessed a series of bloody sectarian conflicts in 2000, where about 2,000 Muslims and Christians lost their lives and many more others fled their hometown as refugees. The sectarian fighting died down in 2002 in the wake of a government-sponsored peace accord, but sporadic violence never stopped.

Source: Xinhua