Merrylands High School has been in the news since Monday's machete attack. On that day, the news reported that "men" had attacked the school using baseball bats and machetes.

Today it's revised to "youths" and "teenagers". The five are:

Two 14-year-old boys from Carramar and Auburn, two 15-year-old boys from Merrylands and Seven Hills and a 16-year-old boy from Merrylands.

Because they're minors, names are not released. When I heard about it yesterday, I immediately thought of a specific ethnic community, because of the choice of weapon (machetes).

One boy broke bail conditions stemming from an armed hold-up (knife, replica gun) earlier this year. The Sydney Morning Herald put Arun Ramachandran on the story (among others). We learn nothing about ethnicity until halfway down today's front-page story.


We learn that "former students" said that "there had been tensions between the school's Pacific Islander students and other student groups for many years".

We also learn that a 16-year-old Merrylands High School student said that "the gang was made up of students from neighbouring Granville Boys High School" (see pic).

The distance between Granville Boys High School (right dot) and Merrylands High School (orange dot) is about three kilometres.


The boys, who will attend Parramatta Children's Court on 22 May, "will remain in custody". They apparently gave themselves up to police quietly.

In overall Sydney-scope, the attacks took place in the area marked with orange.