One Indonesian policeman was killed and seven other people were injured on Wednesday in two separate incidents on a road near a mine operated by Freeport McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc. in Indonesia's easternmost Papua province. The mine has been the site of a string of deadly ambushes over the past 11 days that police have blamed on Papuan separatists.
In one incident, a vehicle carrying Indonesian police and army personnel flipped over, killing one policeman and injuring four others, a national police spokesperson said. The cause of the crash was unclear, but Freeport said in a statement that it was unrelated to recent ambushes in the area.
Just under an hour later, a vehicle carrying Freeport maintenance mechanics and police officers to assist those injured in the accident came under fire, injuring three people, according to the police and Freeport.
Earlier reports that a convoy of buses carrying Freeport employees to the mine had come under attack were untrue, Freeport said.
Indonesia's police and army have been scouring the road near the mine since ambushes began 11 days ago. So far, including the death on Wednesday in the traffic accident, four people have died. Among them was an Australian employee of Freeport.
Phoenix-based Freeport said on Tuesday that Indonesian police have charged six people in connection with this month's violence but gave no further details. Freeport has run the huge Grasberg mine in Papua, one of the largest copper and gold mines in the world by reserves and production, since the late 1980s. The company has operated in Indonesia since 1967.
Papuan separatists have been fighting a low-level insurgency war with Indonesian forces since the 1970s.
**Write to Tom Wright at tom.wright@wsj.com
