A 30-year-old schoolteacher says she has sustained a black eye and a broken nose that may need surgery after a group of men, including neo-Nazis, attacked Camp Sovereignty in Melbourne on Sunday.
Yasmin*, who asked that her real name not be used, told Guardian Australia she had spent a couple of quiet hours at the camp, a standing First Nations protest site just south of the Yarra River, on Sunday afternoon after volatile anti-immigration rallies, led by neo-Nazis, had swept through the city earlier that day.
She had just begun heading home, walking away from the camp, when she “heard a huge commotion”.
“I turned around and I saw what looked like a hundred men in black uniform in formation storming up the hill,” Yasmin said. “I knew that there were lots of women at that camp and lots of vulnerable people and I ran right back.”
The men were carrying poles and sticks, Yasmin said. “I had to run through the crowd to get to my friends. And as I was running, a boy grabbed my hair and pulled me towards him. And he said, ‘Come here, bitch,’ and he just punched me square in the face.”
A 30-year-old schoolteacher says she has sustained a black eye and a broken nose that may need surgery after an alleged attack at Camp Sovereignty. Photograph: Asanka Brendon Ratnayake/Guardian Australia
She said she fell to the ground, and the boy “threw himself” on top of her and “just started laying into my face. And while that was happening, there were four men standing around me, filming me – on their side – filming this kid … he was all of maybe 15 years old … Another one was on the side of me kicking into my ribs. And then another one was going to beat me with a pole.”
Yasmin said the nearby men were instructing her assailants, but told the man with the pole not to hit her with it. “The young boys were the ones that were beating me,” she said, “listening to the directive of the older men”.
Sign up: AU Breaking News email
The assault only stopped when someone pulled the boy off her, Yasmin said, and she ran to the back of the camp, bleeding.
Guardian Australia understands no charges have been laid over the alleged assault.
Video footage of the incident, seen by Guardian Australia, showed at least 50 men, mostly clad in black, approaching the Camp Sovereignty site as the sun was setting, attacking camp signage and violently swinging sticks and poles at camp attenders.
Four people required medical attention and two were taken to hospital with severe head injuries. A spokesperson for Victoria police said crime investigation unit detectives were continuing to investigate the incident.
“It was the most terrifying thing I’ve ever encountered,” Yasmin said. “They were militant, they were organised, they had walkie-talkies, they were wearing mouth guards, they had body-cams. They knew what they were doing … It wasn’t a clash, it was just an assault.”
On Tuesday morning, the mood at Camp Sovereignty was subdued. Under a tarp, police were conducting interviews with witnesses. Smoke from the continuously burning sacred fire drifted across the lawn towards a row of tents, many of which had been erected after a call went out on Monday for people to gather to protect the camp from more attacks.
PJ, a Barkandji/Latji Latji man and camp regular, who was present during the incident on Sunday, said the mood at the camp had been “a little bit rocky, a bit up and down” since.
“We’re still on edge,” PJ said. “They come here just to inflict terror and violence. They weren’t here for any good cause; they weren’t here to sit down and chit chat. No, they come for violence.”
The community had rallied around them since the news had circulated, he said.
Krautungalung elder Robbie Thorpe, who established the camp on a sacred Aboriginal burial site that was otherwise marked only by a rock and a plaque, said he felt the incident was an escalation.
“Australia is an institution of racism,” Thorpe said. “It’s the institutions of this country that have allowed this to manifest. They’re running around saying stop immigration; they’re immigrants themselves. They’re carrying a British flag around.”
“They can get away with the abuse because it’s a national pastime. It’s in the national interest to deny us our rights. So that gives them a licence to do what they like.”
Camp Sovereignty had been concerned about the risk of far-right violence directed at the camp after Anzac Day, when a “known neo-Nazi” heckled during the dawn service at the nearby Shrine of Remembrance, and had been lobbying for a permanent structure on the site, like the nearby MPavilion, to properly mark it and reduce the risk to campers.
Victorian senator Lidia Thorpe, Robbie Thorpe’s niece, said on Monday the alleged “unprovoked, coordinated Nazi attack on Aboriginal people” was “racism out on full display” and ought to be investigated as a hate crime.
“The aim of this attack was to cause fear and terror in the hearts and minds of our people, and black and brown people across the country,” Thorpe said.
On Monday, the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, said of the rallies that “not everybody there was associated with neo-Nazis”, but he raised concerns about polarisation, radicalisation and people following “rabbit holes” to extremism.
On Tuesday, federal Indigenous affairs minister Malarndirri McCarthy described the attacks on the camp as “absolutely reprehensible”, saying she had “never seen this kind of attack in my parliamentary career”.
*Name has been changed