PNG teen killed in minibus crash was ‘the hope for his entire family’

Jamie Kakon’s father spent his entire life savings to send his oldest child to Australia in the hopes of giving him a better life and education than in his homeland of Papua New Guinea.

But that dream was shattered on Monday when the 17-year-old high school student was one of four people who died after a minibus veered off a remote road and ploughed into a tree in northern Victoria.

Jamie’s uncle, Brian Waffi, said from his home in PNG that the teenager’s family were heartbroken and in shock.

“Jamie was such a good boy. A very obedient, kind boy,” Waffi said.

“His father cannot speak, he is crying so much. He was the hope for his entire family. They wanted him to get a good education. His father sacrificed so much so he could hopefully one day support his family back home.”

Waffi said Jamie moved to Melbourne eight years ago, and had three younger siblings in PNG.

“To lose him in such tragedy, they cannot accept what has happened yet,” he said.

The family will travel to Australia on Friday, and hope to take Jamie’s body home with them.

As news of the tragedy rippled through the small town of Mooroopna, dozens of people from the PNG community arrived at the home of another victim of the crash, grandmother Linda Kulia, and sat for hours crying together.

Many of those who gathered at the 51-year-old’s house on Tuesday brought gifts and food. Others held her griefstricken daughter.

In an ancient practice known in Papua New Guinea as “haus krai” (house of crying), the same people will return to her house each night this week.

The tradition honours the dead through shared sorrow. The ceremony can last weeks, from the time a person dies until they are buried.

Goulburn Valley PNG Association former patron Mason Maso said it was a communal kind of grieving, and a way to come together to mourn the loss of two of their own.

“We go, we grieve, we show our empathy, our sympathy and our condolences to the people,” he said. “We cry with them. We sit together. We share ideas about what to do.”

Maso said Kulia and Jamie were among a group of overseas workers who had spent the hours before the fatal crash fruit-picking at a farm a few kilometres south of Cobram.

Kulia, who was a permanent resident, had lived in the Greater Shepparton area for more than four years and was an adored grandmother and mother, he said.

“She was so sweet, so kind to everyone. She was full humility. A beautiful soul. Yesterday was a very sad time. We came together and could not stop crying.”

Kulia often picked fruit at nearby farms as a casual job to support her family.

Maso said this was a common means of employment for the growing PNG community in the Goulburn Valley, with many coming to the region on visas to work on farms.

Tributes for Jamie have flooded in on social media, including from the family the young student was living with.

“My Jamie,” wrote Papua New Guinean community member Alfred Andapanga. “You were my children’s first friend in Melbourne. They found you and you joined them. You moved in and lived with them.

“You became me and my wife’s 8th [child]. I came home last Friday and your brothers and sisters told me you left for Shepparton in the afternoon.

“My wife and I heard your news earlier today, but we are finding it very heavy to tell your brothers and sisters ... Your clothes, bike, bed and everything are here, and we are lost. I know you are not there, but we are on the way to Shepparton wishing it’s another Jamie.”

Emergency services were called to Chapel Road in Muckatah just before 5pm on Monday after the minibus carrying nine people veered off the road. A 34-year-old man and a 45-year-old woman believed to be from Central Africa also died. Five others were taken to hospital.

Those injured in the crash include three 16-year-old girls and an 18-year-old woman. The 39-year-old minibus driver remains in hospital under police guard.

Victoria Police Assistant Commissioner Glenn Weir on Wednesday told reporters many of the occupants were not wearing seatbelts.

“We’re investigating the strong likelihood that fatigue was involved, in that we believe the people involved have been involved in the … fruit picking industry and worked a long day and that someone drove and we think fatigue has caused that,” he said.

“But also a lot of the trauma in the collision was caused because people weren’t wearing the seat belts provided”

All those involved lived in Greater Shepparton but were from overseas and working in the local area.

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