Fearful residents have described what it is like to live in a Melbourne suburb plagued by gangs of African youths blamed for destroying a community centre and running amok.
Tarneit, about 25 kilometres west of Melbourne, is named after the local indigenous Wathaurong word for white.
First used for agricultural grazing in the 1830s, large-scale subdivision began only in the 1990s. Tarneit is less than 20 minutes from Werribee Open Range Zoo, which is what some residents say it has become.
Families such as the Bukas, who left the Democratic Republic of Congo in central Africa for a better life in Australia, have instead been besieged by youth gangs from their home continent’s north.
Bibicha Mahungu (far left), Chanel Kyungu (second from left), Anna Buka ( in purple T-shirt) and Samy Buka (far right holding baby Blessing) pictured at their Tarneit home this week
Police, at least one of whom had been called from Ecoville Community Park, arrest a teenager at Tarneit Central shopping centre during violent confrontations on Wednesday afternoon
The Ecoville Community Park centre at Tarneit in Melbourne’s west has been so thoroughly vandalised it cannot be used by the neighbourhood it was built to service
The Ecoville Community Park building in Cindia Crescent at Tarneit has been trashed by vandals; locals blame the property damage on gangs of Sudanese and South Sudanese youths
The suburb has lately drawn national attention because of the anti-social and sometimes criminal behaviour of youths with Sudanese and South Sudanese backgrounds.
The centre of the Tarneit problems has been the privately-owned Ecoville Community Park in Cindia Crescent, which over the past few months has been so trashed it is now boarded up.
Where once children played, broken glass and debris litter the ground, while every surface of the community centre building has been painted with graffiti.
Much of that vandalism has been attributed to a group calling itself MTS, or Menace To Society, whose presence emerged after the earlier exploits of the more prominent Apex gang.
Daily Mail Australia spoke to four young African teenagers near the centre on Tuesday. One 15-year-old said he was there only to ‘have a couple of toughies’ – cigarettes – because his mum wouldn’t let him smoke at home.
On Wednesday, we witnessed three African teenagers being arrested at the nearby Tarneit Central shopping centre after a violent confrontation in which at least one of them repeatedly spat at police.
One of three teenagers arrested at Tarneit Cenral shopping centre amid a high-visibility policing operation launched to deter young Africans from causing trouble
Officers stationed at a mobile police facility parked outside the Ecoville Community Park at Tarneit where African youths have been accused of running amok in recent months
Ecoville Community Park at Tarneit, about 25km west of Melbourne, has been so damaged by marauding youths its managers have had to board up the main building (pictured)
A teenager is detained by police outside the Tarneit Central shopping centre on Wednesday afternoon after a violent confrontation in which two other young people were arrested
Uniformed and plain clothes officers have been conducting regular patrols of the community centre, shopping centres and surrounding streets in marked and unmarked cars this week.
The high-visibility operation has largely driven the wandering African youth from Cindia Crescent and brought some peace to the neighbourhood but residents are still concerned that when the police leave the gangs will return.
Samy Buka left the Congo four years ago and has been living with his family in Cindia Crescent for just one month. He previously lived for six months in another Tarneit street.
The 39-year-old shares a house with his wife Chanel Kyungu, 31, daughters Anna, 9, and Blessing, one.
When Daily Mail Australia met the Buka clan this week Anna was wearing an ‘I love Australia’ T-shirt.
‘We’re happy having our family here,’ Anna says of her adopted country.
Samy Buka (left) with daughter Anna (in purple T-shirt), sister-in-law Bibicha Mahungu and baby Blessing outside the family’s home in Cincia Crescent at Tarneit, west of Melbourne
Empty drink bottles, cigarette butts and other refuse inside the Ecoville Community Park at Tarneit which the Buka family from the Congo has been too scared to use
A police car makes one of the now regular patrols around the streets of Tarneit where local African youths have been accused of destroying property and scaring families
But the centre of her largely migrant community – the Ecoville park – has long been off-limits. ‘Every time when we try to go there, we can’t,’ Anna says.
Anna calls the Sudanese youths who congregate at the centre ‘they’ and ‘them’.
‘We are scared to go there,’ she says. ‘We’re really scared because of them.
‘They drink beer. They drink so much beer. They get drunk so much. And when they are drunk they are crazy.’
‘There’s a little playground there. But there’s no one that takes their children there at all.
‘That place was for having fun and celebrating parties. That place wasn’t like this. It was filled with grass and happiness.’
A young male uses his mobile phone to film police officers as they arrest one of three teenagers taken into custody at Tarneit Central shopping centre on Wednesday afternoon
A police officer points his finger at a young African with mobile phone in hand before three teenagers were arrested at Tarneit Central shopping centre on Wedesday afternoon
‘We never go down there. Other people never go there. People are scared. Really scared.’
Anna is hopeful the recent police presence will make the park accessible to families like hers again.
‘After they scare them away everyone can start going there again,’ she says.
Mr Buka recalls: ‘Before we come into this house that place was a happy place.’
‘If they fix that place people can come there and play and have fun with their family there and it can be a happy place once again.
‘The people that were there, they break everything. When the people come there and start destroying everything and writing on the walls, no one’s able to go there anymore.
‘They started fighting with the police and the police wasn’t doing anything.
Police patrol the streets of Tarneit near the Ecoville Community Park in Melbourne’s west which in recent months has become a no-go zone for local families, particularly after dark
Bibicha Mahungu (left) and Chanel Kyungu (middle) examine the rubbish-strewn Ecoville Community Park’s main building with Chanel’s son, who did not wish to be named
Parts of Cindia Crescent at Tarneit, about 25km west of Melbourne, became a no-go zone at night due to what locals say are unruly youth of Sudanese and South Sudanese descent
‘They destroyed our life here in Australia.
‘When the police start coming they all started running away, now there’s only a few of them.’
Tarneit has a large Indian population, many of them Sikhs. Vijay is one of them.
‘Most people in Tarneit are Indians,’ Vijay says. ‘We feel safer if we are with the same race. But that is not the case here.’
Daily Mail Australia spoke to Vijay late in the afternoon when there were no youths gathering at the community centre.
‘Maybe the quiet before the storm,’ he says. ‘It becomes worse after it gets dark.’
‘If there is some security going on it becomes calm. But after a few days they come back.’
Asked if he is ever scared, Vijay says: ‘Of course.’
Chanel Kyungu (left) walks with her sister Bibicha Mahungu through the trashed Ecoville Community Park in Cindia Crescent at Tarneit about 25km west of Melbourne
A shopping trolley filled with rubbish stands in the foreground of the Ecoville Community Park which has been so trashed by vandals families cannot use the facilities any more
A teenager is restrained by several police outside Tarneit Central shopping centre during a series of violent confrontations which resulted in three arrests on Wednesday afternoon
‘They try to scare you. Most people stopped walking in this area. It doesn’t mean I want to change my route and walk all the way around.’
Vijay points to a row of houses across the road from the community centre which appear to be empty but are in fact accessed from the rear by choice. ‘They don’t want to be visible,’ he says of the occupants.
Mayur Bhavsar has been living in one of those houses for just three weeks. While his home was being built vandals smashed several front windows so he has spent $6000 on roller shutters.
He does not use the front gate.
Mr Bhavsar has also spent $4000 on security cameras and Colorbond fencing to protect the front of his home. ‘All up it was $10,000 extra,’ he says.
The 42-year-old civil engineer who lives with his wife, 18-year-old son and 16-year-old daughter, was impressed when he first saw the community centre before he set up home.
Mayur Bhavsar and his son Marmik outside their home which is across the road from Ecoville Community Park at Tarneit, where local youths have destroyed neighbourhood facilities
Mayur Bhavsar (left) stands in front of his Tarneit home with son Marmik; Mr Bhavsar has spent $10,000 installing roller shutters and security cameras as well as a Colorbond fence
‘I thought this was a good place’: Mayur Bhavsar thought the Ecoville Community Park (pictured) was a ‘great building’ when he decided to move into Tarneit; it is now a dump
‘I said this was a great building,’ he says. ‘Refreshing atmosphere. I thought this was a good place. We thought it will be a good experience.’
‘But then when we heard the real story over there,’ he says, indicating the community centre, ‘it’s not a good experience.’
‘I don’t personally have any trouble with them. Everywhere there is some good and bad people.
‘But when people walk around in groups of 15 or 20, then I fear.’
Vikramjeet Singh and his pregnant wife Randeep Kaur, both 34, have lived in a street near the community centre for three months.
‘We moved to this area because we thought it was quite nice,’ the storeman says. ‘We thought it was quite nice, then we got here…’
Mr Singh soon became wary of groups of young men drinking and screaming out in the streets.
Vikramjeet Singh and his pregnant wife Randeep Kaur have been living in Tarneit for about three months and have felt threatened by gangs of youths roaming the suburb’s streets
A flat-screen television that has been smashed and dumped outside the Ecoville Community Park at Tarneit, which locals came has been a meeting place for unruly African teenagers
Police arrest one of three teenagers who were detained at the Tarneit shopping centre, about 25km west of Melbourne’s CBD, after a violent confrontation on Wednesday afternoon
‘One night a few weeks back there were six or seven police cars,’ he says. ‘From last week, it’s very quiet.’
Mr Singh’s sister’s children, a girl, 5, and a boy, 11, used to enjoy using the community centre’s skate park until they encountered a group of loutish youths who shouted at them.
‘They said ‘uncle, we don’t want to go in this park again’.
‘It’s very scary living around here to walk around.’
‘This country gave us all the opportunity so we have to respect it. Everyone should have to.’
Truck driver Diljot Singh, 22, and his food shop manager brother Randeep, 20, have lived across from the community centre in Cindia Crescent for about four months.
‘Before the whole police operation began we were very scared to go out of an evening,’ the older Mr Singh says.
His brother recalls one day when he was playing basketball on the community centre court when ’10 or 20′ African youths attacked him and his friends, throwing rocks.
Inside the Ecoville Community Park centre at Tarneit after it had been destroyed by vandals locals say are young members of the local Sudanese and South Sudanese community
Joseph Esau says the Ecoville Community Park at Tarneit, west of Melbourne, which has been destroyed by youth street gangs, was a great place for families until about eight months ago
Graffiti at the trashed Ecoville Community Park at Tarneit, in Melbourne’s western suburbs, has been attributed to African street gangs including ‘MTS’ or Menace To Society
‘We moved in in August and by September I was feeling I was in the wrong place,’ he says.
‘We just don’t feel safe.’
Joseph Esau, a 43-year-old assistant store manager, has lived in nearby Mazel Street for two years with his partner, 12-year-old daughter and son, 15.
‘I had a friend who used to look after that community centre,’ he says. ‘When he was doing it the place was perfect.’
‘It was a good community hall. All the kids used to play basketball and stuff.’
That was until about eight months ago.
‘The place is wrecked,’ Mr Esau says. ‘People used to play chess there. There’s no way you could do that there now. People used to take their dogs there. You can’t do that now.
‘From afar you’d think man, it looks nice, but you get up close…’
Joseph Esau has lived in Mazel Street, Tarneit, for two years and says he has never felt unsafe in his home but is disappointed the community centre can no longer be used for its purpose
Bibicha Mahungu (left) and Chanel Kyungu (middle) examine the rubbish-strewn Ecoville Community Park’s main building with Chanel’s son, who did not wish to be named
Police arrest a teenager outside the Tarneit Central shopping centre in Melbourne’s west on Wednesday afternoon after a violent confrontation with up to 20 African youths
The New Zealander says he sometimes sees youths speeding in cars on his street but they tend to leave his neighbours alone.
‘There’s a lot of Kiwis in this street and a couple of bikies across the road and they probably know not to start up too much trouble. They pick their targets.
‘At the moment a lot of people are talking about the Sudanese but my experience is that with some of the other younger kids they are all right.
‘When they get in bigger packs they’ll show off. They just feed off each other.
‘Sometimes the boys aren’t local boys. They’ll cause the grief in the neighbourhood and then they’ll wander off. They just run in packs.
‘Gauging from where these kids come from, they’re lucky to be here.’
Mr Esau says he has never felt unsafe in his Tarneit home.
‘I’m hoping it’s a phase,’ he says. ‘We’ve got a massive police presence here now.’
‘If you look for trouble in any suburb you can find it.’
Marked police cars have been patrolling the streets of Tarneit in Melbourne’s west this week after months of trouble involving African youth gangs reported by law-abiding residents