Five people were injured in the latest clash between two feuding villages in the southernmost province of Hainan, sources said Wednesday.

Residents of Baoshang Village, Dongfang City, were seen blocking roads and burning a farm truck Wednesday afternoon.

The clash came one day after hundreds of residents of Gancheng Village smashed vehicles and set fire to the government building and police station in Gancheng Township, in protest against the failure of local government and police in maintaining public security.

Gancheng residents have been unhappy with local police because four of their children have so far this year been attacked by unidentified people, whom Gancheng residents believed were from the feuding Baoshang. Police have made little progresses in these cases.

A middle school brawl between two students from the villages became the last straw and resulted in Monday's protest, said Fu Bo, chief publicity official of Dongfang City.

In Tuesday's clash, five villagers from Gancheng went to the Baoshang Village at 11:30 p.m. and set fire to a hotel and residences, said a source on the condition of anonymity. Baoshang residents put out the fire of the residences before they spread and beat up one of the villagers from Gancheng. He was seriously injured in the attack.

The four-story hotel on the border of the two villages was destroyed by the fire.

Villagers from the two villages were then involved in scuffle, leaving four residents of Baoshang injured, a local resident told Xinhua.

The two sides stopped attacking each other after more than 20 policemen intervened. Previously, two bystanders were injured in the Monday protest.

Gancheng has had a troubled relationship with Baoshang over land for almost eighty years and there have been frequent brawls between residents of both villages -- each with a population of about 10,000. The latest clash has been one of the most violent clashes in recent decades as tensions escalate.

The government of Dongfang City sent more than 100 officials in 12 work groups to calm villagers Tuesday. Police were not involved in dealing with the Monday unrest.

(Xinhua News Agency March 25, 2009)