The death of a five-year-old Warlpiri girl has sent Alice Springs into a deep grief, but locals say the search showcased the town at its best

Warning: This article contains images of and references to Indigenous Australians who have died

Flowers line the entrance to a small community, tucked away on the side of a major highway. The words “love and strength” and “RIP” peek out between the petals.

People from all walks of life in Mparntwe/Alice Springs, a city in the red centre of Australia, have come to pay their respects to a little girl last seen alive at this camp almost one week ago.

Her name is now Kumanjayi Little Baby. The name her mother and brother called her – and which was spoken by police officers, displayed on national news websites and called out by hundreds of volunteers in the five-day search for her through long dry buffel grass – will not be used again. This in line with Warlpiri cultural protocols after her body was found in that same grass on Thursday, five kilometres from the floral tributes.

The five-year-old Warlpiri girl was last seen alive by her mother at 11.30pm on Saturday, 25 April. She had been tucked into bed in a house in Marshall Court at the Old Timers or Ilyperenye town camp. Her mother had gone to the camp earlier that day to do her washing, police explained later, and had stuck around. People were drinking. “It was a bit of a party,” the assistant police commissioner, Peter Malley, told reporters.

At 1.30am, her mother went to check on her daughter. She was gone.

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Police and a volunteer team search for Kumanjayi Little Baby. Photograph: Em Jensen/The Guardian

For five days, hundreds of volunteers searched through kilometres of grassland, desperate for a good outcome. Local businesses donated their time, food and money. The hope of finding her alive bound the town together. The communal grief, when that did not happen, was profound and threatened to rip the town apart.

On Thursday evening, 10 hours after Kumanjayi Little Baby’s body was found, a man wanted in connection with her disappearance walked into another town camp and was set upon by the residents.

By the time police arrived, 47-year-old Jefferson Lewis was unconscious, the NT police commissioner, Martin Dole, told reporters on Friday.

An angry crowd later swarmed the hospital, where he had been taken for treatment for his injuries, setting fire to a police car, damaging four others and most of the region’s ambulances and smashing windows.

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A police vehicle burns outside the Alice Springs hospital where Jefferson Lewis was being treated. Photograph: Rhett Hammerton/AP

Lewis was flown to Darwin for both his safety and that of emergency service workers, Dole said. He is expected to be charged in the coming days.

‘Time now for sorry business’

The Old Timers town camp sits a few kilometres south of Alice Springs, the second biggest city in the Northern Territory. It’s one of 18 town camps, Aboriginal-controlled housing blocks set up in the 1970s for people displaced from their traditional lands.

Alice Springs is a town often divided down racial lines. Locals know it as a welcoming place, but one that only comes to national attention on issues of inequality, crime, and social unrest.

The death of Kumanjayi Little Baby has devastated the town.

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‘This town came together for this little child, black and white’, Kaytetye man Warwick Thornton says. Photograph: Em Jensen/The Guardian

“It’s too traumatising to talk about,” says Kaytetye man and film-maker Warwick Thornton. He is sitting at his local pub on Thursday after hearing the news, and says he wants people to know that his town can unite under the worst of circumstances.

“There’s a lot of racists here and that stuff, but when a little child, whether they’re black or white, goes missing, everyone gets together,” he says. “This town came together for this little child, black and white.”

The owner of the Alice Springs Brewing Co, Kyle Pearson, who has lived in the town for more than two decades and donated money to the search efforts, struggles to hold back tears as he speaks to Guardian Australia. He isn’t the only one: veteran journalists, police officers, community spokespeople and politicians alike cry when speaking of Kumanjayi Little Baby.

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Alice Springs Brewery owner Kyle Pearson. Photograph: Em Jensen/The Guardian

“I’ve been here a long time, and I’ve got daughters of my own as well,” Pearson says. “It’s pretty horrible to hear what happened today.

“Everyone has got their differences here, and not everyone agrees all the time, but when something like this happens, people and the community will band together pretty quick and get behind anything that they need to.

“It’s devastating to hear that news today. I was just talking to guys at the brewery, and people are pretty sad and shocked that something like that could happen here.”

Sitting in her office in the centre of town, the mayor, Asta Hill, who has been in the job since August last year, says she is “utterly heartbroken”.

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Mayor Asta Hill says the mood in Alice Springs was a ‘feeling of … the stillness of pausing in grief’. Photograph: Em Jensen/The Guardian

“We’re experiencing such a significant loss in this community, and it’s extremely raw,” she says.

She is concerned that the unrest on Thursday night will overshadow the generosity of spirit on display in the days after the child’s disappearance.

“What happened at the hospital last night, kind of interrupted this feeling of … the stillness of pausing in grief, I suppose,” she says “I’m honestly concerned because this story that’s told about Mparntwe (Alice Springs) nationally is often negative.

“We’re always in the news for the wrong reasons, and the loss of Kumanjayi Little Baby is absolutely devastating. But a really important part of that story is also the love and care that this entire community showed for her and her family in the search for her.”

Kumanjayi Little Baby’s two grandfathers, the Central Land Council chair, Warren Williams, and the senior Yapa (Warlpiri) elder and family spokesperson, Robin Granites, issued statements on Friday calling for calm.

“It is time now for sorry business, to show respect for our family and have space for grieving and remembering,” Granites said. “Everyone is feeling very upset, and emotions are very high.

“Our children are precious, of course we are feeling angry and hurt at what has happened.”

Williams thanked those who came together and said: “To those who think this is the time to take out their grief on the people who serve our community, I say stop right now.”

He also took aim at comments made by the opposition leader, Angus Taylor, who called for a royal commission into violence and sexual abuse in Alice Springs town camps.

“To those who think this is the time to use Mparntwe town camps as a political football, I also say stop,” he said. “Have the decency to give us space to process the trauma of the last week.”

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Catherine Liddle in Alice Springs on Friday morning. Photograph: Em Jensen/The Guardian

Some reform is needed, says Arrernte and Luritja woman Catherine Liddle, the CEO of the Secretariat of National Aboriginal and Islander Child Care, a peak body for Indigenous children. She says the focus should be on corrective services and social housing policies, particularly support for women and children.

“At some point, there has to be a very pointed look at how that happened,” she says.

Police say they will charge people with unrest in Alice Springs after arrest over death of Kumanjayi Little Baby

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Back at the Old Timers Town camp, a local man named Brad is laying flowers. His sister, mother and niece all joined the volunteer search party.

“It’s hit them pretty hard,” he says. “This has made a big impact on the community.”

A little distance along, a non-Indigenous man named Evan is also paying his respects.

“This is such a shock, and it’s a big rock to the heart even for someone like myself who’s not actually part of mob,” he says.

“I feel for them (family) deeply. … It just breaks my heart, and I’m deeply affected. I thought I’d come here and say hello and goodbye at the same time.”

– Additional reporting by Sarah Collard