A young women accused of being a sorcerer has been brutally murdered in front of a crowd of people in one of Papua New Guinea's biggest towns.

Both daily newspapers carry photographs of a crowd watching tyres burning on a pile of rubbish at Mt Hagen yesterday.

Underneath the tyres was a 20-year-old woman who had been tied up, stripped naked and doused with petrol.

Local reports say she had been murdered by the relatives of a young boy who died in hospital earlier in the week.

They accused the woman of using sorcery, or black magic, to kill the boy.

Before burning her alive they tortured her with hot iron rods, according to the media reports.

Policemen tried to rescue the woman but they were chased away by the crowd.

Such incidents are not uncommon in PNG where belief in sorcery is widespread.