In Jakarta, fresh protests broke out at the Australian embassy as Australian corporations evacuated their staff from Indonesia.

Despite a relative calm in Dili, Red Cross officials said fresh blood on the streets showed that attacks by pro-Jakarta forces had not stopped. Smoke still hung over the city as the United Nations sent its first airdrops of urgent aid.

The violence, launched by the militias and some elements of the military, was triggered by last month's ballot favouring independence from Indonesia. Thousands are thought to have been killed since the August 30 vote.

Witnesses and Indonesian military officials said a man was shot in the shoulder in Dili's Bekora district on Friday morning as he was waiting for rice to be distributed. However, it was unclear who carried outthe attack.

In Atambua, a West Timor border town flooded with refugees, a leader of pro-Jakarta militias said forces had registered to fight the UN force due to arrive on Sunday.

"At this moment entire components of the command of the pro-integration struggle in East Timor have registered themselves as volunteers ready to face the United Nations forces," Domingo de Deus said.

"We are ready to kill and to be killed," he said. In East Timor's second city Baucau, the most senior clergyman left in the territory warned of another wave of murder unless pro-Jakarta militias were brought under control and called for a tribunal to investigate atrocities there.

Bishop of Baucau Basilio do Nascimento said the militiamen were mostly to be blamed for the savagery in his city. "We can't say it's genocide yet...But genocide may happen if the Indonesian troops fail to control the militia," he said. Streets in Baucau wear a deserted look after weeks of violence by anti-independence militiamen who have been backed bythe Indonesian military.

The city, 120 km east of Dili, was showing muted signs of returning to life. But the UN office has been burned and ransacked along with 71 UN cars.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said it had sent officials into the territory with food and medical supplies.

A spokeswoman in Jakarta said the ICRC had taken in more than 13 tonnes of food, including rice and high-protein biscuits.

She said the militia were still to be seen in the general vicinity of the Capital and that stolen ICRC vehicles, stripped of their logos, were being used.

The ICRC plans to send in 15 expatriates after the weekend.