A woman has been murdered in an alleged case of domestic violence and a senior government minister has described her death as a tragedy.
A 57-year-old man who was in a relationship with a 43-year-old woman was arrested and taken into police custody.
Neighbours raised the alarm on Tuesday night after hearing shouting and fighting inside a terraced house in Darwin.
“We called the police because we heard her screaming but they didn’t come very quickly,” a neighbour told AAP on Wednesday.
“If they think we’ve stolen something, the police come like a flash, but when we say we’re going to die, they don’t show up.”
Neighbors said they first called police around 8 p.m.
Several confirmed that the woman had been trying to ‘move out’.
Northern Territory Police said they were notified that a 43-year-old woman had died shortly after midnight and responded quickly.
A woman was murdered in an alleged case of domestic violence and a man was arrested (pictured is the terraced house in Darwin where the woman allegedly died)
They could not confirm whether a weapon was involved or how the woman died.
They also declined to confirm whether they had received previous calls, saying they were still in “preliminary investigations.”
A neighbor said he looked out his window around 10 p.m. and saw a woman sitting on the sidewalk crying.
“An ambulance arrived, but there were no sirens, so we knew it was too late,” he said.
Emergency services were unable to resuscitate the woman and major crimes detectives were notified later that evening.
Police could not confirm whether those involved were on the Family Safety Framework, a prevention programme that provides support to families at risk of death from domestic violence.
Domestic and Family Violence Minister Kate Worden said it was a tragedy that another woman had died in the Northern Territory.
“The police will carry out their process, but when will this end?” Worden asked.
The suspicion of domestic violence followed the publication of a report into the murder of four Aboriginal women, which exposed systemic failures by police and government agencies to respond to calls for help.
The Northern Territory has the deadliest rates of domestic violence in Australia, but receives only four per cent of federal funding for services.
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