South Sudanese community in shock after sudden, suspicious death at Palmerston

Abot Mabil Derwei, 34, was found dead in a townhouse in Palmerston on Saturday, October 5. Police are yet to lay charges over the incident.

Mr Abot Derwei had been in Canberra for less than three months after moving from Adelaide. He had hoped to find work in the ACT, so he could move his wife and four children to the area, and had recently started a job as a labourer.

He had lived in Adelaide for the past 13 years. He came to Australia as a refugee in 2004, and settled in a small town near Tamworth where he met his wife, Aduk Monydhot Majock. The couple then moved to Adelaide and had four children, three girls and a boy. The oldest child is 10, and the youngest is just nine months.

Mr Abot Derwei's nephew, Canberran Gabriel Thon Deng, sought permission from the immediate family to speak to the Sunday Canberra Times and to share photos of the deceased, his wife and children.

Mr Thon Deng said he first met Mr Abot Derwei in a refugee camp in Kenya. He arrived at the camp a few years after Mr Abot Derwei, but they were there together for seven years.

"I knew him before when we were in Africa, but I got to know him more when he married my aunty," Mr Thon Deng said.

"He's a very quiet man, he's very good, he's a family man, he's a community person. He gets along with everybody, he has never had any trouble at all."

He said the South Sudanese community was shocked and saddened at the sudden death.

"We don't really know what happened, but we know he's gone."

He said Mr Abot Derwei, who was living in Throsby with a friend, had visited his home for dinner about two weeks before he died.

"After that I was caught up with work and I haven't seen him. After that it was to hear the news he was gone."

Mr Thon Deng found out about the death in the afternoon on Saturday and went to the crime scene to find out more information. He has been the conduit for relatives in Melbourne, Adelaide and South Sudan since, but there are still no answers about how Mr Abot Derwei died.

"His father is in South Sudan and he's asking what's happened," Mr Thon Deng said.

"He is shocked too."

A GoFundMe page has been set up by relatives to assist the young family with the expense of relocating the body back to Adelaide.

"It's a small community in Canberra but we're trying to help the relatives to take his body to be buried in Adelaide where his family is. It is the honorable thing to do."

It is customary in their culture to bury the body in the few days following the death, and to have a viewing for the family before the burial.

Mr Thon Deng said he hoped they do not have to bury the body without having answers as to how the death occurred.

"It's quite a terrible situation," he said.

Marial Kot is president of the South Sudanese community in Canberra. He said it was "a very big loss" for the community.

"Usually when somebody dies and he is not buried, we tend to think he's still with us," Mr Kot said.

"People don't forget easily the impact of what is happening, but once he's buried then definitely that's when the healing begins."

Mr Kot thanked police, victim support and the community for their work on the case and assisting those affected.