The last words Yiel Gatluak said to his mother were “I love you”.
It was New Year’s Eve and Nyatut Kaf was chatting to her son on the phone, dreaming of the future.
Her 19-year-old had moved to Alice Springs right after high school to begin his career as a mechanic.
He soon fell in love with the warmth and wild beauty of the desert town, and couldn’t wait for his family to join him.
But last week, on New Year’s Day, tragedy struck. Yiel’s body was found in suspicious circumstances on a remote road east of Alice Springs, prompting a police investigation.
“We were supposed to come on the 15th, me and the little one,” Nyatut said.
“He always said, ‘Come, there are so many women here who are working, I’ll rent the place for us, come with my little brother’.”
That New Year’s Eve night, they spoke of those dreams, making final plans for the family’s big move to the Red Centre, before saying goodbye.
It would be the last time they spoke.
The next day, Nyatut received the news that would “turn her world upside down”.
Community in mourning
Yiel’s body was found around 12:30pm on January 1 along an unsealed section of Undoolya Road, by a motorist who contacted emergency services.
Police investigated his death as suspicious from the start.
This week, Yiel’s family and members of Alice Springs’ Sudanese community gathered to erect a memorial where the young man’s body was discovered.
Under the blazing desert sun, they laid flowers against a white cross and sang together.
They said it was a “song of hope” that one day, they would be reunited with Yiel in heaven.
But underneath their hope was a deep grief, anger and a desperate plea for answers.
On Tuesday, police announced three Alice Springs residents, believed to be known to Yiel, had been arrested over his death and were expected to be charged – a teenager and two men, aged 20 and 21.
They confirmed the incident was being investigated as a homicide.
It was also confirmed that Yiel had sustained injuries, though police said they were “not penetrative in nature”.
Family calls for justice
Yiel’s father, Deng Gatluak, said he had no idea why someone would hurt his “lovely son”.
“If you ask him ‘do you have anything in your pocket?’, he’d literally give [it] to you,” he said.
“He’s smiling. A lot of happiness you can find from him.”
Deng also remembers his precious last conversations with his son in the days before his death.
“He called me to say Merry Christmas. But he did not get to tell me Happy New Year,” he said.
Yiel’s family has this week launched a fundraising page to bring their beloved son home to Melbourne, where they will bury him.
In the meantime, they are pleading for justice.
“We are getting closer to the answers now that we need, and that has been my prayer since the first day when I heard the news,” Nyatut said.
“Let me not bury my son before knowing what was done to him.”