Saibai
Situated around 140 kilometres north-northeast of Thursday Island and nine hundred kilometres north-northwest of Cairns in the Torres Strait Islands' northwestern (Top Western) group, Saibai Island (Kala Kagaw Ya: Saybay, Saibai, Saibe) is separated from the New Guinea mainland by a four--to-five-kilometre-wide strait. The island is a locality within the Torres Strait Island Region local government area. Apart from some government infrastructure and historic buildings, most of the island is held under native title.
Only a tiny proportion of the relatively large (about twenty kilometres long and fifteen kilometres at its widest point) low-lying (less than two metres above mean sea level at its highest point) island, formed by alluvial deposits from the Fly and other rivers in Papua New Guinea, is inhabited. Flood plains and brackish mangrove swamps cover most of the island, with Saibai village on the island's northwest coast and a smaller village, Churum (Surum White Sand), in the southwest.
The islanders, whose traditional language is Kalaw Kawaw Ya, maintain close family, clan, trading and religious links with neighbouring Papuan communities and can cross the border provided they hold a permit. Visitors to the island cannot. Strict quarantine regulations apply in the region.
Although the Island is prone to flooding during the wet season, which regularly delivers around two metres of rainfall and coincides with king tides, a bitumen airstrip allows year-round access.
After a particularly severe intersection of king tides and wet season rainfall in 1947 saw Saibai village inundated by ten metres of water, several families decided to leave Saibai and move to Muttee Heads on Cape York Peninsula, where they established a temporary settlement in abandoned army facilities. In 1952, after the Queensland Government gazetted 44,500 acres between Red Island Point, Kennedy Inlet and Cowal Creek as a reserve for the Torres Strait Islanders, the temporary settlement at Muttee Heads relocated inland in 1952, establishing a settlement named Bamaga in honour of the migration's leader, Bamaga Ginau. A remnant community at Red Island Point changed its name to Seisia in 1977
Missing links:
Sãibai village
Churum
Red Island Point
Kennedy Inlet
Cowal Creek
Bamaga
Bamaga Ginau
