Jakarta – Two separatist guerrillas were wounded when an Indonesian military patrol clashed with rebels in Papua province on Tuesday, the military said.

The clash occurred in Sarmi district on the north coast some 150 miles west of the provincial capital Jayapura. It broke out around 6am when a patrol encountered 10 people carrying one firearm, bows and arrows and machetes, said district military commander Colonel Agus Mulyadi.

Agus said the firearm was confiscated along with bullets and some documents of the separatist Free Papua Movement. He said the men belong to a splinter group led by Adam Uduas.

The Free Papua Movement, a poorly armed outfit, has waged a sporadic low-level armed revolt since Dutch colonisers ceded control of the resource-rich territory to Indonesia in 1963.