Exiled group of Aborigines to leave damage

A GROUP of exiled Yuendumu people will leave South Australia next week, after the funeral of the Aborigine whose death sparked riots.

A GROUP of exiled Yuendumu people will leave South Australia next week, after the funeral of the Aborigine whose death sparked riots.

South Australian police yesterday confirmed the group would leave the Fort Largs Police Academy, where they had been staying since the middle of last month, amid concerns they damaged property at the site.

The Australian visited the site in the northern Adelaide suburbs yesterday. A large group sat outside an accommodation block on chairs next to broken furniture, including bed frames.

Fly screens on several windows were broken, as were venetian blinds in some rooms.

A police source said yesterday the group had damaged furniture inside the block and had taken furniture outside, which had been damaged by rain.

The source said staff had been concerned about the academy since the Yuendumu people arrived early last month, after alleged damage to staff and training cars.

Chief Superintendent Fred Trueman confirmed a number plate had been stolen and another car damaged.

"There is no evidence to suggest that anyone from the Yuendumu group is involved," Chief Superintendent Trueman said.

Despite the Yuendumu people staying in a block surrounded by cyclone fencing, staff have raised concerns about catching scabies and head lice from the children.

"To ensure (police) staff and recruits did not contract these conditions, (police) took the precautionary measure of establishing a separate mess hall for those from Yuendumu," he said.

The Yuendumu people travelled to Adelaide in a convoy of buses and cars in mid-September to escape tribal violence in Alice Springs.

A spokeswoman for the South Australian Families and Communities Minister, Jennifer Rankine, said it was up to the Yuendumu to arrange their return.

She said both the South Australian and Northern Territory governments were negotiating the costs of the accommodation, meals and local transport, which were understood to have topped $200,000.