‘All this here will kill this river’: traditional owners grieve for the Darling-Baaka after mass fish death

Dead fish on the banks of the Darling-Baaka river near Menindee, NSW, after the mass fish kill. ‘This is an Australian disaster and it should be treated as such.’ Photograph: Samara Anderson/AP

Traditional owners in Menindee are grieving for a river that smells like death.

“The Baaka is our culture; to see the fish like this and to smell the fish is just unbelievable,” says Malyangapa Barkandji woman Denise O’Donnell. “The whole of Australia should be fighting for this river – all the rivers. It makes me sick to see it like this, it makes me cry. It’s very heartbreaking. A lot of the community feel the same and they are grieving – this is so wrong.”