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Content warning: Contains descriptions of sexual assault.
One woman woke to find a US marine assaulting her in her bed, another was taken to hospital after having her drink spiked at a military barracks, and a third believed a US marine grabbed her and tried to sexually assault her at a bar. All the incidents took place in Australia’s Northern Territory, but the investigations into them were either handed over to US authorities, stalled, or dropped.
SBS News has obtained a series of reports between 2015 and 2021 from the Australian Defence Force Investigative Service (ADFIS) under freedom of information laws. They detail six alleged assaults or indecent acts involving US military personnel whilst on rotation in Australia, including members of the Marine Rotational Force - Darwin, a contingent of up to 2,200 personnel regularly based in the Northern Territory since 2011.
COVID babies , lure of high-paying quarantine jobs put stress on Darwin nurses
Darwin hospital wards are bursting at the seams as a surge in COVID baby births puts extra pressure on staff at a time when nurses are being lured away by higher-paying jobs at the Howard Springs Quarantine Facility.
The Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation says midwives are struggling to keep up with the increase in COVID babies due to the staff shortages.
The union s NT branch secretary Cath Hatcher says general practice nurses are also being poached by the quarantine facility.
But the NT Health Department says the birthing suite at the Royal Darwin is not over capacity.