Lloyd Jones, East Awin, Papua New Guinea – At the age of five, Donatus Kaenop was carried through the jungle and across the border into Papua New Guinea by his refugee parents escaping violence and persecution in the Indonesian province of Papua.

More than two decades later he is a barefoot community health worker in ragged trousers harbouring a dream of one day returning with his family to be a doctor in his free homeland, independent of Jakarta's domination.

With recent violent Papuan protests and police crackdowns across the border, that day seems as long off as ever.

Kaenop thought his family was just going on a hunting trip when he crossed the border. He was one of thousands who in 1984 escaped Indonesian forces trying to stamp out the independence struggle. They fled killings, beatings, rapes, torture, disappearances.

The arrival of Papua of hundreds of thousands of Javanese and other Indonesian migrants under Jakarta's transmigration policy has pushed Papuans to the fringes in their own land.

Kaenop's home is now with 2,500 Papuan refugees in the remote East Awin settlement along a rough jungle road in PNG's Western Province. He works from a simple aid post with a hard earth floor, helping fellow refugees in Komopkin village which lacks electricity.

It is a long way by dirt road and open boat to the nearest town of Kiunga on the Fly River.

But thanks to the Catholic diocese, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), PNG government authorities and donor agencies like AusAID, Kaenop's and other aid posts are maintained for the 12 refugee villages at East Awin along with a health centre and schools.

The refugees only have a 1km strip for food gardens each side of the road and the soil is becoming overworked prompting them to go beyond the limit to find more fertile ground and risk clashes with local landowners.

Kaenop recalls his journey across the border with members of his parents' Muyu tribe from Mendiptana. "It was very dangerous and very sad. They walked through the jungles with luggage on their backs. I had to be carried by my parents on top of other goods," he said.

Kaenop has two children who have never seen his birthplace and his aging parents may die before they get the chance to return to the homeland they long for.

"I'm really hoping we can go back but at the moment those people working in the political rooms are slow. That's our homeland and we can't keep staying in other people's land.

"We need to be free from Indonesia, we don't want them to be always chasing us. They are still kidnapping our political people, that's why we are in fear."

"When they go for studies and political meetings, they kill them," Kaenop says.

Indonesia has steadfastly defended its sovereignty over Papua and maintains that allegations of human rights abuses are exaggerated.

This month tensions have soared in Indonesia's easternmost province with violent protests at the US-run Freeport gold and copper mine and the town of Jayapura.

Demonstrators were angry over the mine's environmental destruction and complaints that little of the revenue from the mine benefits Papuans.

At least six people were killed in the Jayapura protests, including four policemen and a member of the air force who were killed by mobs.

Human rights groups are investigating reports that up to 16 students were killed by police in retaliation.

Australia's decision last week to grant temporary protection visas to 42 Papuan asylum seekers who arrived in Cape York in an open boat also heightened tensions.

An enraged Jakarta withdrew its ambassador from Canberra, insisting the Melanesian people of Papua are not persecuted.

The former Dutch colony was taken over by Indonesia in the 1960s but a so-called Act of Free Choice endorsed by the United Nations in 1969 has been widely condemned as rigged to ensure the region's inclusion in Indonesia.

A low-level secessionist struggle has been waged ever since and rights groups say tens of thousands of people have been killed.

The recent tensions have raised fears of another influx of asylum seekers to PNG.

Kaenop says if things get worse, some people such as students involved in the protests might have to get out. "But there are soldiers on the border and they are fully armed and we fear them."

Fadela Novak, a temporary UNHCR protection officer for the East Awin camp from New Zealand's Immigration Service, says the agency has heard nothing strong about a new wave of refugees but the situation is not stable in Papua.

UNHCR and the PNG government have contingency plans in place for such an influx with crossing points and temporary camp sites identified, she says. "It could happen, it's a question of being ready for it."

Meanwhile, the East Awin refugees are there to stay, she says. "It's very clear there is not a solution for repatriation tomorrow. They say they will not go back until independence or decent autonomy. These are people who are not going to go back soon."

The East Awin refugees are officially recognised by the PNG government and given residency permission under a "limited integration policy".

But about 5,000 more reside in 17 informal settlements along the border where the government doesn't want them and provides little or no services. Authorities fear border villages might be used as back camps by independence fighters of the OPM, the Organisasi Papua Merdeka or Free Papua Movement.

PNG's Immigration Department border and special projects manager Chris Kati says if there is a new influx of refugees, more room is available along the road at East Awin to resettle them.

But he says the government is not in a good position to extend the 1km strip on either side of the road because it has only paid local landowners about five per cent of the agreed purchase price for the original block.

Following the big influx of 12,000 to 15,000 asylum seekers who crossed in 1984/85, a few thousand have opted to go back. The last reasonably big influx was of Highlands people from Wamena in 2000.

Novak says it is difficult to monitor how those who decided to return to Papua have fared because Indonesian authorities have declined UNHCR requests to monitor the situation inside the province.

Long-term East Awin refugee Nixon Matirani says the Indonesians employ a "smiling policy" to encourage what they call "border crossers" to return, offering assistance with housing and food. But the authorities will watch those returnees and any false move means brutal retaliation, he says.

The former OPM communications operative says the organisation is now disunited and Indonesian intelligence people are very clever at sowing seeds of discord within the movement.

In a meeting at East Awin with Novak last week, the Wamena people urged the UNHCR to help them resettle somewhere else on better land and handed over a petition of their political grievances to go to the UN in Geneva. "We are sitting here dreaming and dying," one leader said.