A TIGHT-KNIT Top End community has been left reeling after the petrol sniffing death of a 12-year-old-boy.

The young boy was reportedly found by family members unresponsive in the back of a car in the East Arnhem Land community of Gapuwiyak earlier this week.

Senior Sergeant Dan Whitfield-Jones told Gove FMon Thursday that after discovering the boy, his family took him inside and started CPR, called the clinic and police.

“Unfortunately by the time emergency services got there he was deceased,” Sen-Sgt Whitfield-Jones said.

“At this time it is believed the boy died due to sniffing petrol in the back of the car.”

The death has triggered shockwaves throughout the remote region.

Sen-Sgt Whitfield-Jones said the boy’s death had had “a profound impact on not just the immediate family but the extended family as well”.

“What we’re seeing is that this is reverberating through a number of nearby communities where extended families are obviously devastated by the death of this young man.”

Police have launched an investigation for the coroner.

In response to the tragic incident, police said they would be “pushing out a lot of education material” across the region. “We’ll be working with Health (Department) where we can just to promote the dangers of sniffing,” Sen-Sgt Whitfield-Jones said.

Petrol sniffing has “unfortunately been fairly entrenched in Arnhem Land … not just Gapuwiyak, but in Galiwin’ku and we do see it here in Nhulunbuy as well,” the officer said.

“The issue is here. There are a number of communities that are affected by it.”

Police have also been investigating a number of recent cases of unlawful entries in East Arnhem Land where jerry cans and other petrol canisters were stolen by sniffers.

Last year reports out of Arnhem Land suggested the region was in the grip of a “public health emergency” due to high rates of sniffing substances like petrol or aviation fuel, or Avgas.

Former Miwatj Health chief medical officer Lucas de Toca told NT News at the time about 100 young people on Elcho Island and nearby communities were sniffing aviation fuel, but said the behaviour had stopped since a security guard had been stationed at the Galiwinku airport in May last year.