As peace was agreed between the orang kaya and the VOC, most of the islanders fled to the hills, and began to engage in skirmishes with the Dutch. Coen responded by razing villages and forcing their inhabitants to work for the VOC. On 21 April, the Dutch extracted, using torture, confessions from the orang kaya that there was a conspiracy against the Dutch. Coen captured at least 789 orang kaya and members of their families, and deported them to Batavia, where some were enslaved. He ordered his troops to sweep the island to destroy villages in order to force the surrender of the population. Over the following months, the Dutch and the natives were engaged in fierce fighting. Seeing the destruction caused by the Dutch, many of the defenders chose to die of starvation or from jumping off the cliffs rather than surrender. According to Coen, "about 2,500" inhabitants died "of hunger and misery or by the sword", "a good party of woman and children" were taken, and not more than 300 escaped. Another account estimated that out of the islands' 15,000 population, only 1,000 survived, including those who lived in or fled to the English-controlled islands of Ay and Run. Modern scholars, including Willard Hanna and Vincent C. Loth, estimated that 90 percent of the population were killed, enslaved or deported during the campaign.. How many of the 15000 natives died according to another account?