Our communities in crisis

'Nobody comes to investigate why this is happening': Mowanjum community leader Gary Umbagai at the entrance to the town. Photo: Glenn Campbell
It came without warning, triggered by something as trivial as a teenage boy demanding that his brother hand over his mobile phone. It was the 16-year-old's birthday, and he was celebrating by drinking steadily all day, as he did most days. The tiff, really nothing more than a simple squabble between brothers, ended in the early hours of the next morning when the darkest of impulses overwhelmed the child.
An 8-year-old girl raised the alarm. She had sighted the boy's lifeless body hanging from a tree behind the church in the abandoned playground. After several hours police and emergency services arrived, conducted a brief investigation and had the body removed.
As the sun climbed into the sky, scores of children looked on in silence. Witnesses said the grieving and sobbing rolled through the tiny community of Mowanjum like a thick black cloud. In this one small place, just a 10 minute drive from the thriving mining hub of Derby in West Kimberley, there have been six deaths by suicide in six months.
Gary Umbagai, council chairman and mineworker, openly despairs about the rising death toll and community dysfunction. "There is something dreadfully wrong in our community, but what can we do?" Mowanjum and Derby he adds, have the highest youth suicide rates in Australia, possibly the world.
"There is a terrible crisis here, but nobody in authority except the police acts as if there is a crisis." The Age visited Mowanjum this month with the permission of the traditional owners and after being alerted to the community's desperate plight by health workers troubled by what they believe is chronic official indifference.
In January, a 20-year-old surrendered his life after his partner locked him out because he was drunk and violent. In March, a 44-year-old newly unemployed mineworker hanged himself. In yet another incident, a young girl vanished into the bush only to be found days later, also the victim of an apparent uncontrollable impulse after a relationship went wrong.
Umbagai says he has lost count of attempted suicides. A document obtained by The Age reveals that in a four-month period from July last year, 18 females and 22 males were admitted to the Derby hospital, for self-harm, attempted hanging, overdosing and suicidal thoughts. Most cases involved indigenous people and excessive alcohol consumption. The number of young Aboriginal people taking their own lives may be higher as some deaths, such as a recent road fatality, have been classified as accidental...

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 Russell Skelton @'The Age'