“The city’s economy has been paralysed by the demonstrators,” Lakotani said. “Negotiations between protesters and the authorities are currently underway to end the riots.”

Indonesian President Joko Widodo sought to ease tensions on Monday, urging rioters to keep calm.

“It’s okay to be emotional, but it’s better to be forgiving,” he told reporters at the presidential palace, a television broadcast showed. “Patience is also better.”

His chief security minister, Wiranto, also pledged a “complete and fair” investigation into incidents.

Authorities closed local schools for the day.

The ties that bind Papua and Indonesia

Monday’s riots were triggered by reports that authorities tear-gassed and detained some 43 Papuan university students in the Southeast Asian nation’s second-biggest city Surabaya on Saturday – Indonesia’s independence day.

Local media and Papuan activists said police in riot gear stormed into a dormitory and used tear gas in a bid to force out students who allegedly destroyed an Indonesian flag.

Albert Mungguar, an activist, said on Sunday that students had been called “monkeys” during the operation.

Papuans were angry because of “the extremely racist words used by East Java people, the police and military”, Papua Governor Lukas Enembe told broadcaster TVone.

National Police spokesman Dedi Prasetyo did not deny reports that police used tear gas, but said the students in Surabaya were only “questioned” briefly before being set free.

Television footage on Saturday also showed a different group of protesters demonstrating against the students and shouting racial slurs about Papuans.

Lakotani, who met protesters in Manokwari, said Papuans demanded an apology for the slur against the students, as well as protection for anyone studying across the archipelago.

“We apologise because this does not represent the voice of the people of East Java,” the province’s governor, Khofifah Indar Parawansa, said in a televised statement and called the slur “someone’s personal outburst of emotion”.

Indonesia routinely blames separatists for violence in Papua and conflicting accounts are common.

The country’s security forces have for years been dogged by allegations of widespread rights abuses against Papua’s ethnic Melanesian population including extrajudicial killings of activists and peaceful protesters.

Hundreds also protested in Jayapura, the region’s biggest city, on Monday.

“It’s been a while since I saw West Papuans this angry,” Veronica Koman, a human rights lawyer who focuses on Papua, said on Twitter. “The liberation movement is entering a new chapter.”

Additional reporting by AP, Reuters