Probe finds Aborigines dying trying to escape appalling lives

The coroner’s inquiry found that life for Aborigines in the Kimberley region of northwest Australia was so horrific that it was fuelling a soaring suicide rate, widespread alcohol abuse and leaving aboriginal children prey to sexual abuse.

In 2006, the suicide rate among Aborigines in the Kimberley rose 100 percent to 21 deaths, compared with no increase in the white population, which recorded just three deaths.

In Fitzroy Crossing, a dusty outpost of a few houses and a hotel, there were eight suicides in 2006 among a population of just 3,500.

Alcohol abuse was so entrenched among Aborigines in the Kimberley that “fetal alcohol syndrome” was 21.5 times higher than the rest of the Western Australia state.

Deaths due to alcohol in the Kimberly between 2000 and 2004 was double that of urban centers and hospitalization due to alcohol was 5.5 times higher.

Western Australia state coroner Alastair Hope investigated the deaths of 22 Aborigines, all linked to alcohol and drugs, in the Kimberley since 2000.

He said aboriginal communities in towns like Fitzroy Crossing were engulfed in rubbish, houses were small and dirty with little furniture and kitchens contained little or no food.

People slept on filthy foam mattresses, along with diseased dogs. Houses were crowded with sometimes 20 people per house, and temperatures soared to over 40 degrees Celsius in summer.

“It was clear that the living conditions for many aboriginal people in the Kimberley were appallingly bad,” Hope said on Monday in handing down his findings.

“In these communities there is nothing to do for most of the inhabitants for most of the time. Alcohol and drugs provide an escape,” he said.

Hope said “there is little refinement about the drinking,” with Aborigines becoming excessively intoxicated and consuming warm beer and wine mixed together.

A medical officer told the inquiry that there were so many “stuporous bodies on the ground” at Fitzroy Crossing at night, and drunks staggering in the dark, that if was hard to find the patient she had been called out to assist.

“The plight of the little children was especially pathetic,” said Hope. “Many already suffer from fetal alcohol syndrome and unless major changes occur ... they are likely to suffer poorer health and die younger than other Western Australians.”

“They live in an environment where they can expect to be the victims of violence and possibly also sexual abuse,” he said.

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