Ethnic violence:

ASSAM: New clashes took the death toll from ethnic violence in India’s remote northeast to 22 on Tuesday despite an official curfew backed by shoot-on-sight orders, police said.

Fighting flared overnight between Bodo tribal groups and Muslim settlers in the west of Assam state, where more than 40,000 villagers have fled their homes to shelter in government buildings, schools and relief camps.

Indian soldiers and paramilitary troops have been on patrol to try to quell the unrest that started on Friday, triggered by long-standing territorial disputes.

“Incidents of arson and violence were reported overnight from several places with the death toll now put at 22,” Hagrama Mohilary, head of the Bodoland Territorial Council, a local government body, told AFP by telephone.

“The situation is tense and volatile and we want more security forces, especially reinforcements of army soldiers.”

Local television channels broadcast pictures of several homes that had been set ablaze by rioters.

“Police, army and paramilitary troopers have intensified patrols and a 24-hour, indefinite curfew has been imposed,” Assam Forest Minister Rockybul Hussain said from the worst-hit district of Kokrajhar.

Police issued shoot-on-sight orders late on Monday after rioters burnt shops and houses and attacked rival gangs. The orders mean that mobs breaking the curfew could be shot without warning.

Authorities said an estimated 40,000 people — many of them women and children — had fled their homes to take shelter in relief centres set up at designated government facilities.