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Mass movement

Over the past week, 18 million people - the equivalent of the population of a small country - have been on the move, in what must surely be the largest migration of people within a week anywhere on the planet.

Newspapers and television reports have been filled with pictures of enormous crowds piling on to massive ferries, train carriages packed to the rafters, and buses overloaded with gigantic bundles of goods, as though everyone is desperately trying to flee a coming storm, floods or perhaps even a riot.

But this migration, known in Indonesia as mudik, or exodus, is not to escape war, famine or natural disasters, but to return to one's village home at the end of the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan.

Every year, in what is the most important part of the Muslim holiday for Indonesians, millions make the arduous trek across Java or Sumatra, to Borneo and the outer islands, to return to their villages.

By the weekend, at least 17 people had been killed in head-on collisions between buses and trucks, incidents that barely made the headlines.

Almost a quarter of Jakarta's official population of nine million people is estimated to have left the city.

The trips to central java, or by ferry across to Sumatra and the other islands, can take days. Traffic jams in central Java regularly stretch back 20kms.

Two years ago, holidaymakers travelling to Pangandaran in west Java were stuck in a traffic jam for two days after petrol stations on a road winding down to the south coast ran out of fuel.

Dozens of cars were left stranded, blocking the road until petrol tankers arrived to fill up the empty stations and provide much-needed relief.

This year, bus stations in Jakarta organised random drug tests on drivers in the hope that the number of horrific accidents could be reduced.

But on top of the mass stampede, the week before the Lebaran holiday is also a time for swindles and cons.

Local papers report that armed robberies are on the increase, as those who lack the funds to join the festivities, steal the money instead.

There has also been a rise in thieves who hypnotise their victims, ordering them to withdraw money from bank cash machines, according to the newspapers.

But perhaps the most alarming and creative deception was the one carried out by up to 2,000 bogus journalists in Medan.

The suspected thugs and sex workers arrived at government offices last week demanding presents in the form of large amounts of cash.

Some of the more opportunistic among them threatened to expose officials in corruption scandals - and perhaps even sex scandals - if they were not paid.

Local papers reported that in the end, officials from the governor's office failed to turn up for work because they feared being extorted.

But if these so-called 'journalists' were successful in their scams, it can only be because they were imitating the real thing, for whom it is standard practice to demand Lebaran presents from officials.

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