The death toll in several days of clashes in Indonesia's Papua province has risen to four, police said after the unrest prompted the central government to shelve controversial plans to split the province into three.

One man wounded early Wednesday has died in hospital, said Abdul Gani, a senior police officer in the town of Timika.

Hundreds of Amungme hill tribesmen, armed with bows and arrows and spears, and other opponents of the new province of Central Irian Jaya have been battling hundreds of supporters of the plan. Three of those killed, including the latest victim, were opponents.

Late Wednesday the government announced it was shelving the reorganisation. Top security minister Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said the government would take into account economic and social-cultural factors before deciding whether to go ahead with it.

The government says the purpose of dividing the province into three is to improve administration in the wild and mountainous 411,000-square-kilometre territory, which has a population of about three million.

Opponents say the real aim is to lessen support for a long-running separatist movement. They say it violates the grant of special autonomy to the resource-rich province which went into effect in 2001.

Tribal representatives say they fear an influx of outsiders to help run the new province will marginalise them like Australia's Aborigines.

Trouble began after the declaration Saturday of the new province by local legislators and administrative leaders. More clashes occurred on Sunday, Monday and Wednesday.

Gani said about 15 people were injured when tribesmen angered by police efforts to prevent a renewed clash attacked officers early Wednesday. He said there had been no fighting Thursday.

Indonesia has faced a sporadic low-level armed separatist revolt, along with peaceful pressure for independence, since it took control of Papua in 1963 from Dutch colonialists.