Frightened Timorese packed churches to pray for peace yesterday, but gangs allied to feuding police or army units continued to rampage through the capital, evading foreign peacekeeping troops and torching homes and vehicles.
This Reuters correspondent saw one gang of about 20 youths chase a man into a half-built house before bludgeoning him to death in the doorway with rocks and clubs.
"He was setting fires," said one of the ringleaders, seemingly the oldest at around 20.
As night fell, smoke was still billowing above several neighbourhoods in Dili as the gangs, that identify with army factions from either the east or west of this tiny nation, marked out their territories with makeshift barricades and roadblocks and took revenge on rivals.
Antonio Caleres Junior, director of the city's main hospital, said 20 people had died there in the last week - 14 from gun shot wounds and six from burn injuries. He was unaware of casualties that his hospital had not treated.
Australian troops, part of a 2,000-plus multinational deployment following the East Timor government's appeal for help, stepped up patrols in the capital but still appeared to hold back from directly engaging the rampaging gangs.
They were backed by small patrols of Malaysian and New Zealand troops.
"Why aren't the Australians doing anything?" asked one youth, manning a barricade on the main road leading from the airport.
"It's a trickier operation than some people think," Australian Prime Minister John Howard told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation yesterday. "Nobody should assume that it's just a simple walk-in-the-park military operation - it's quite challenging."
The commander of the Australian troops said soldiers were concentrating on disarming factions of the military and gangs.
"We will detain anyone who is suspected of having undertaken or participated in a fight," Brigadier Mick Slater told reporters. "We will be disarming everybody in Dili."
Hundreds of Timorese looted a World Food Programme warehouse, taking huge bags of rice after disrupting an attempt to distribute supplies to women.
They were ordered to drop the bags by patrolling Australian soldiers, but when the troops were called to another disturbance the looters carried on where they had left off.