Hundreds of Indigenous Australians displaced by record flooding along the Daly River in the Northern Territory (NT) — Australia's sparsely populated tropical north — have been housed in a fenced, security-controlled compound that residents and community leaders are comparing to a prison camp. Evacuees from the communities of Palumpa and Nauiyu, forced to flee their homes twice in four weeks after the river reached a historic peak of nearly 24 metres, were relocated to the Batchelor Institute campus surrounded by a three-metre temporary fence, where their bags and vehicles are routinely searched, visitors are blocked or restricted, and emergency payments have been quarantined. The situation has drawn sharp criticism from Indigenous organisations and community leaders, who say the treatment would never be applied to non-Aboriginal flood victims, while some evacuees have now been abruptly returned to homes still lacking power, running water, and food supplies.