Jakarta – Some 65 migrants were trapped in a hinterland town in Indonesia's separatist province of Irian Jaya after thousands of local tribesmen prevented them from leaving, a report said Monday.

The migrants were not under detention but were not allowed to leave Tiom, a town some 270 kilometres west of Wamena, the Kompas daily said, quoting three teachers who had managed to slip away.

An officer on duty at the police station in Wamena declined comment, referring queries to the police chief, but he could not be reached. The teachers had slipped through the siege on Tiom hidden in the back of a truck driven by a local resident, Kompas said.

They said that thousands of tribesmen, armed with bows and arrows, spears and stone axes, had surrounded Tiom and practically imposed town arrest on some 65 migrants there. "We were banned from going anywhere," said Hendrik Maurius, one of the three who escaped.

He said that the tribesmen had also threatened to kill all the migrants in Tiom if Indonesian security personnel attempted to forcefully lower the Morning Star separatist flag raised there. Those still trapped in Tiom were mostly teachers, government employees and members of the security forces and their families, they said.

Kompas said that the administrative and military chiefs of the Jayawijaya district, which covers Tiom, had attempted to land there by helicopter on Saturday but had to fly back to Wamena because of local hostility.

Members of the presidium of the pro-independence Papua Counicl had also attempted to land in Tiom using a small aircraft but were prevented by a hostile mob on the ground.

The men who escaped said a group of armed tribesmen was guarding the Tiom airstrip following rumors that members of the Papua Council presidium were to land there to bring the Morning Star down.