An African teenager has been photographed holding a long knife while walking through a town in regional Victoria in broad daylight, leaving Aussies shocked.
The image shows the male, who appears to be in his teens, holding the blade behind his back on St Georges Road in Shepparton on Friday afternoon.
He was accompanied by two other black-clad youths, one wearing a black balaclava and the other with long hair in a ponytail.
Local residents said the group were later spoken to by police at the nearby train station and let go after the knife was confiscated, but Victoria Police has refused to comment on the incident.
The photo sparked outrage in the surrounding area and Australia-wide after being shared on social media, with many saying such scenes were unimaginable not too long ago.
“Oh God they’re all the way out in Shepparton too now? Man we can’t get Pauline in fast enough,” wrote one Aussie.
“I have never seen this behaviour anywhere in Australia, let alone in a country area,” said another.
“Remember when we were called racists for saying we had an African gang problem,” a third commented.
But others said that Shepparton, which was 69.9% Australian-born at the time of the 2021 Census, was home to a growing number of people from third world countries.
“Shepparton has been flooded with immigrants, almost all of our beautiful orchards have been uprooted to make room for new land to house all these newcomers. Our ‘super’ school is a haven for gangs. Not the place to be,” one local said.
“Shepparton started to bring them there over 10 years ago, this has been going on for years. Shepparton is one of the regional areas that many Africans are relocated to,” said another.
The disturbing scenes come days after a Somalian teenager was allegedly stabbed to death in Melbourne’s north amid the city’s ongoing African gang crisis.
Young people of African background make up 50% of those in youth detention in Victoria, despite being less than one percent of the population.
Victoria stopped releasing statistics on the nationality of offenders in 2018 as a result of a combined push between the Labor government, Victoria Police and corporate and state media to prevent Australians from discussing the issue of African gang crime.
Header image: Left, right, the knife-wielding teenager (Facebook).
