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Arrival of Australian soldiers in the Solomon Islands
Photo: CPL BRANDON GRAY / AUSTRALIAN DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE HANDOUT / EPA
The Fiji Islands send 50 security forces to the Solomon Islands.
They should "contribute to the maintenance of peace and security," announced Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama on Monday.
Australia and Papua New Guinea had previously dispatched around 150 security forces.
There have been riots and looting in the Pacific country for days.
At least three people were killed.
Angry mobs roamed the streets of the capital, Honiara, demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare.
The police said they had arrested more than a hundred people in connection with the riots.
She also used tear gas.
In the group of islands with around 800,000 inhabitants, which are located 2000 kilometers northeast of Australia in the Pacific Ocean, violence between different ethnic groups broke out in the early 2000s.
A peacekeeping force led by Australia was stationed in the Solomon Islands between 2003 and 2017.
The long-standing rivalry between the most populous island of Malaita and the central government on the island of Guadalcanal has been cited as a cause of the protests.
The violence has now also been directed against the Chinese minority in the coastal capital Honiara, where several houses in their neighborhoods were set on fire.
As a result, the Beijing government protested repeatedly.
Sogavare's government has also come under fire for resolving in 2019 to sever ties with Taiwan and establish a formal relationship with China.
The province had resisted the decision made in 2019.
This led to an independence referendum last year, which the national government rejected as illegal.
as / AFP