The violence in the community of Peppimenarti in the Northern Territory has forced parents to take their children out of the local school, amid claims of gangs burning homes, leaving some people to live in tents.
The community has been grappling with a surge in violence and unrest associated with an outback gang, who often post videos and photos of themselves on social media.
Peppimenarti residents have told Guardian Australia that many people fear sending their children to school because of the unrest, bullying and violence, with children as young as eight years old caught up in it.
An estimated 200 people live in Peppimenarti in the Daly River region, about a six-hour drive south of Darwin.
Karl Lukonavic, who has lived in Peppimenarti for more than two decades, said the situation in the town had been deteriorating since 2020. Rising tensions between some families have had deadly consequences.
Lukonavic’s nephew was killed in a crossbow attack in the town in September 2022. In July this year, two people including a teenager were shot, requiring hospitalisation in Darwin.
“When I first came, it was a little town [where] all the families got on. Everyone was generous and loving and caring to one another,” Lukonavic said. “Now it’s just turned into hell.”
He said there was a lack of support for community and that funding was not getting to where it is most needed.
“There are just promises from the government,” he said. “All this money that they say is put into Aboriginal affairs … it all gets chewed up before it hits the people on the ground.”
Annunciata Nunuk Wilson, a respected local artist who works with the West Daly regional council’s community safety patrol, said many residents were at breaking point.
Wilson said she was forced to flee her home earlier this year due to the unrest and had received death threats. She said she now lives in a tent with some of her young grandchildren. Lukonavic, her partner, often stays with them.
“I haven’t been back [to my house] except to shower because it’s just so dangerous. They’re still threatening to kill me,” Wilson said.
She claimed several people attempted to burn her home while police watched on after she called triple zero.
“They came to my house and threatened to burn my house and they actually burnt the trash and dry grass outside,” she said.
Mobile phone footage of the incident, purportedly shot last Tuesday and seen by Guardian Australia, appears to show a police vehicle with lights on attending the scene and parked some metres from the home. Smoke billows from a small grass fire.
“My front yard, the front light and the power points are all damaged. The police car was just in front, just watching,” Wilson said. “I feel frustrated and angry, it’s very disheartening.”
Wilson and her mother, Regina Pilawuk Wilson, also a celebrated artist whose works have been exhibited around the world, are paying for students to attend schools as far away as Darwin, Timber Creek and Jabiru.
Annunciata Nunuk Wilson said since the violence had begun, local school attendance had dropped sharply. “There’s hardly no kids there. They used to go every day, it was full.”
She said she spent about $300 a month to help support family in other communities and was lucky she and her partner could afford to send the children somewhere safer.
Wilson said the NT government had an obligation to ensure children and families felt safe and that children could be educated safely within their homelands.
“They should have a better safety plan for them to go freely and not worry about anything around them,” she said.
Data from the federal government’s My School database shows a decline in registered enrolments at Peppimenarti school over the past three years. In 2020, 51 students were enrolled, but this fell to 43 students in 2021 and just 34 in 2022. However, enrolments in 2022 were similar to 2018.
The NT government said the school was “safe and calm” and worked hard to encourage attendance, with students collected and dropped off to ensure their safety.
A spokesperson for the government said school attendance had fluctuated recently because of ceremony and cultural activities.
“Many families are on country during the dry season and the school has a homelands program whereby education is taken out bush to the students,” they said.
The government said police were working with the community to ensure safety, including building a new Peppimenarti police complex with detention facilities and government employee housing to support a larger police presence.
New houses were also being built and the government was working with the Northern Land Council to ensure local people have somewhere to live, the spokesperson said.
Ray Whear, the chief executive of Deewin Kirim Aboriginal Corporation, described community frustrations about the ongoing violence in an open letter.
“It’s like nobody’s interested, nobody cares,” Whear said. “The police turn up after everything’s over, and of course then they’re angry with the police so then the police start threatening to arrest the people who’ve called for help.”
In a statement, police said there were two officers stationed at Peppimenarti and further resources were dispatched as needed from nearby communities.
NT police said all reported crimes against a person were responded to without “fear or favour” and that they were working with elders, traditional owners and other community stakeholders “to bring an end to these disturbances”.
Lawyers representing community members have recently taken a racial discrimination claim to the Australian Human Rights Commission against the NT government, alleging a lack of police resources for Peppimenarti residents.
