Sydney - A young woman in Papua New Guinea was stripped and lashed to a pole before being burned alive, news reports from Port Moresby said Wednesday.

Locals said the body of the teenager was found smoldering at a rubbish dump in Mt Hagen on Monday.

Witnesses said five men tied her up, piled car tyres beneath her and set them alight.

They told Australia's ABC Radio that she may have been put to death for practicing sorcery or for transmitting HIV/AIDS.

Many murders in Papua New Guinea, the South Pacific's biggest country, are linked to black magic beliefs or to AIDS infection. (dpa)