'They can't stop': Wadeye elders desperately try to end violent feud

Elders hold 'grave concerns' ongoing unrest in the remote NT community of Wadeye will lead to deaths In short: Police and elders in the remote Northern Territory community of Wadeye say they fear someone will be killed if large groups of armed people fighting are not stopped. Community leaders whose relatives have been critically injured and their homes attacked say they have tried to broker a truce between young people feuding. What's next? Wadeye community leaders are appealing to the NT and federal governments to provide more people with housing on their homelands, in an effort to end the ongoing unrest. Leaders and organisations in the Northern Territory's second-largest Indigenous community, Wadeye, say they fear it is only a matter of time before someone is killed in ongoing clan feuds and are appealing to the NT and federal governments to help find solutions. Groups of up to 150 people armed with crossbows, machetes and spears have been fighting in the Daly region community over the past two weeks, attacking homes and police, burning cars and seriously injuring one man. The violence is part of a decades-old feud between some of Wadeye's 24 clans, who are crammed together in overcrowded housing on Kardu Diminin clan land. Over many years the feuding has regularly sparked serious violence in the community of 2,500, including the death of a man and damage to 125 houses in 2022. Mathawurr clan community leader Desmond Longmair said two weeks ago an armed mob attacked his house in Wadeye and burnt his car, and NT Police had been unable to answer his phone call for help. "People just came running this way with axes and metal bars and they smashed this car, and they had petrol in a coke bottle and sprinkled it and set fire to it,"he said. "We had kids here, and I told them to put a petrol drum and fill it with water and jam it to the door so they couldn't break down the door." Mr Longmair said he was so dismayed by fighting between members of his and other families that after the attack on his house, he and other elders forced younger family members to meet at one of the town's football ovals to apologise and agree to a truce. "I keep telling my boys not to do that. I think they're doing it for some sort of fun — they're bored, don't want to work, they just want to make themself big and like a hero," he said. "I went over with the other boys from the Creek Camp and all my boys and I shook hands, we grabbed each other and I said: 'Promise me no more, that's it.'" But the truce hasn't held — two police vehicles were smashed when 150 people began fighting on Monday. Mr Longmair said as people arrested for fighting were gradually released from prison after serving sentences, they resumed tit-for-tat attacks, and he feared someone would be killed. "When somebody dies that trouble keeps going, or somebody gets out of jail, they open up that old trouble," he said. Payback spreads violence Fighting among people from Wadeye hasn't only been contained to the community, with incidents also occurring 400 kilometres away in Darwin. Two weeks ago, ranger Joshua Bunduck's nephew was injured in fighting between 30 armed people from Wadeye in the city. His nephew had only just been released from prison and was critically injured in the brawl. "Young boys and young girls came with rocks and machetes, they damaged his skull, but the hospital machine showed it hasn't damaged his brain," Mr Bunduck said. Mr Bunduck said he was concerned the incident would spark more attacks because under his cultural law it would be up to his nephew to decide whether his family should seek what they call "payback". "Family are very worried for him; it's up to him to decide what they're going to do, whether to get revenge or not," he said. He said Wadeye's fighting continued because "that's what they do; some can't stop". Arthur James Junior Karui, 50, who was in and out of youth detention and prison when he was younger, often after fighting, said he was now trying to get his sons and nephews to stop. "I was doing that when I was young, because of jealousing over women problems, and I was in prison, but I've calmed down now and got a good job in construction," he said. "We want to stop all those young boys fighting and killing each other; I keep telling them to get a job." Robert Ninnal Melpi, an assistant teacher and a board member of Wadeye's Aboriginal-led Thamarrurr Development Corporation, which represents all the clans, said the violence was affecting children. "It's a very sad community. The kids are really negative at the moment, no one's going to school, nearly 500 kids are staying at home out of it," the Wulthirri clan member said. Weapons have 'potential to kill' NT Police Central Division Superintendent Virginia Read said her officers had made dozens of arrests in relation to the Wadeye violence, seized dozens of weapons, stopped some of the large quantities of black market alcohol from coming into the community, and tried to support elders in their attempts to pressure their families to stop. "The weapons that are being used have the potential to kill people — something as simple as a house louvre, makeshift axes, right down to the rock on the side of the road," she said. "You have these people living together that don't like each other, and we get continuing rolling issues, so, how we can fix that? "I think we can only keep doing what we're doing working with the families and letting them have the say on how this problem can be fixed." One of many locals desperate to stop the violence, Wadeye Kardu Diminin traditional owner Margaret Perdjert, said she wanted more support from the NT and federal governments to repair burnt houses and build more public housing. "There's a lot of empty houses around the community, so rebuild those houses and people can move there," she said. "We want the government to come out here and see what's happening out here." Ms Perdjert also said more homes in surrounding homeland communities would allow warring families to escape the community's pressure-cooker atmosphere more regularly. Mark Tunmuck-Smith, another Thamarrurr Development Corporation board member, called on governments to relax rules that prevent people with public housing from also getting money for a house on their clan homeland, because the violence in Wadeye was so serious. "We need to change some rules and come up with a better plan immediately because we are crying out loud that we want to move back to our homelands where we feel safe," he said. The Yekyederr clan member said he would also like to see more rehabilitation program funding for released prisoners at risk of restarting fighting. "They come out and they're still doing the same thing. They need to be out on the bush, country, that's where their spirit is," he said. He said one of his biggest fears was that the violence would lead to the community losing its rich culture and identity, and he appealed to residents to work together. "It is really hard to stop. The solution is within ourself, in the community itself; it really comes down to us, to take ownership and move on," Mr Tunmuck-Smith said. Benildus Narndu, a Yeknanga clan member, was another of the community leaders who brought young people together to apologise two weeks ago. "We want to help our young boys stop everything because this payback is getting worse," he said. "We are worried about our young boys killing each other with a crossbow, we don't want that." He said one solution should be making sure more young men go through their traditional ceremonies and spend more time learning their culture. "If we stop our culture, what will take its place? Everything is going to be spoiled, everybody is going to be hurting, bringing more drugs like cocaine, alcohol," he said. Looking for solutions Deputy chief executive of the Thamarrurr Development Corporation, Tracey Leo, said the organisation was continuing to run aged care, housing maintenance and youth diversion services during the violence — which had included a machete attack in the corporation's takeaway store that police couldn't respond to for 24 hours. "The very obvious response is increased police resources," she said. "Despite the numbers on paper, our understanding is we only have two active police officers on-shift at a time." Superintendent Read said she was not aware of slow police response times and that she was in the process of recruiting more officers to Wadeye's 17 police positions, which would soon be increased to 19. To help provide long-term solutions, Ms Leo said the NT and federal governments should commit more funding for services that could better tackle the underlying stressors in the community. "There's no alcohol rehab facilities, there's no psychologist, no counselling services; the women's safe house in the last 12 months, on a number of occasions, has been so overwhelmed with people it's had to shut down," she said. "People are drinking to get some relief from these pressures, and the fighting is an expression of trauma and frustration, so let's come together and look at the stressors that we can get under control quite quickly and easily. "The generation coming up now are wholly welfare dependent, have not known work; a lot of young people aren't going to school, can't speak English, have never seen anything but dysfunction. "So I have grave concerns about Wadeye unless we can grab these things and turn it around, and even then it would take another 20 years to turn this around." NT Aboriginal Affairs Minister Steve Edgington said the Territory government had recently built five new houses in Wadeye and had promised 36 more within a year. He said the government had listened to the community's appeals for more investment in homelands housing, and he called on the federal government to provide funds as part of its $4 billion commitment to NT remote housing. "To build on homelands, this is a whole new bucket of money that's needed, and consideration given to how we tackle housing on Aboriginal land in the homelands," he said. On a visit to Wadeye in May, Mr Edgington said he also started discussions with community members on how alcohol could better be managed there. In a statement, a federal government spokesperson acknowledged the importance of homelands and said it was "investing in housing and essential infrastructure". "The National Indigenous Australians Agency is working closely with the NT government, local organisations and the community in response to the recent issues in Wadeye," the statement said.