JAKARTA: Enraged Indonesian police fired live bullets to root out about 1,000 protesters from a university in Papua after the students beat several officers to death, eyewitnesses said on Friday.

Three policemen and an airforce officer were killed in Thursday’s melee in the restive province of Papua, where the mine run by US firm Freeport-McMoRan has become a symbol of local grievances against Jakarta and Washington. A fifth person died on Friday morning in hospital of head wounds, a hospital official said.

"The students were insulting Indonesia, yelling ‘Indondesia is a robber, Indonesia protects Freeport,’" Benny Giay, a local Christian minister who tried to mediate in the dispute, told AFP.

The students had gathered outside the university in the provincial capital of Jayapura, blocking a main road and demanding the closure of the mine, which is a top source of revenue for the Indonesian government. Riot squads came in after police failed to convince the students to open up the road, said Yanke Baru, a volunteer for the human rights group Elsham-Papua who was on the scene.

He said three cordons of police then surrounded the protesters. "Then the mass started throwing stones while police were negotiating with a student leader. The police grabbed the student leader and when other students saw police treat him so brutally, they threw many stones," Baru said. "And that’s when police started beating some students." Many in Papua complain that they do not see enough benefits from the mine and with tensions already high, the beatings apparently infuriated the crowd.

Two policemen fell in the fracas as officers chased the protesters into the university campus, Baru said.

"They were beaten to death," he said, adding that the others were beaten later. The shooting began shortly afterwards.

"Because the students threw stones, they shot back," Baru said. "They used live bullets. I took 12 students injured to the (Catholic hospital)... Almost 10 students were shot."