‘This is family fighting, we call it mum versus dad’: Further details of Wadeye unrest emerge

More details have emerged about the family feud that sparked ongoing violence and unrest in the remote Territory town of Wadeye, leaving hundreds of residents displaced.

MORE details have emerged about the family feud that sparked ongoing violence and unrest in the remote Territory town of Wadeye, leaving hundreds of residents displaced.

The Weekend Australian reports that locals say the catalyst for the rolling crisis was the death of a 32-year-old man known as Mr Tcherna over the Easter long weekend.

More than four months later, the national broadsheet reports many people remain “miserable, short of supplies and their children aren’t attending school”.

But despite what the paper describes as an “uneasy calm” in the town, residents fear further unrest could be sparked by Mr Tcherna’s funeral in August.

“This is family fighting, we call it mum versus dad,” traditional owner Stephen Bunduck told The Australian.

“We are fighting with our own family, with our relations.”

The Australian’s northern correspondent, Amos Aikman, has been the only media invited to visit Wadeye since the violence started and reports that the “strife began when Mr Tcherna, a young man from the Kinthari family, got drunk and smashed up a car belonging to a cousin-brother from the Thchinburur family”.

“The cousin-brother took offence and gave the young man ‘a good hiding’. Both families were upset. A ‘fair-go fight’ (think bare-knuckle boxing) was convened to settle the problem, but the young man, now sober, unexpectedly knocked his relative down.

“The cousin-brother’s family was angry and confronted the young man’s family. It’s not entirely clear what happened next, but soon Wadeye’s notorious gangs were involved.

“Mr Tcherna was a relative of Ezekiel Narndu, 19, who has been charged with manslaughter over Mr Tcherna’s death.”

Wadeye Kardu Diminin traditional owner and cultural leader Stephen Bunduck. Picture: Amos Aikman

Earlier this month, the NT News reported the 57-year-old alleged “leader” of Wadeye’s “German Boys” gang had been granted bail after being charged with engaging in violent conduct, rioting and going armed in public for his alleged role in the continuing unrest.

But defence lawyer, Josh Bach, told the Darwin Local Court there was no evidence his client, cultural elder Casimar Narndu, was involved with any gang.

“Mr Narndu is the leader of his family in a cultural way but we certainly resist any submission by the prosecution that he’s involved in a gang or persuading young men to be involved in violence,” he said.

“Ultimately bail is sought because Mr Narndu denies the offending that he’s been charged with.”

Mr Bach said while police had obtained a video of a large number of people in which “it seems everyone is holding a weapon” and a “still that shows somebody who appears to be Mr Narndu holding a weapon”, he had only picked up a boomerang thrown by his brother “so that no one else would throw it”.

“Mr Narndu instructs that on the day of the conflict he had gone out to try and persuade the young men in his family to stop fighting, that he walked out between them and was yelling at them and the other side to stop the fighting,” he said.

Read Amos Aikman’s full report in The Weekend Australian here.