Just after 9am they came, in a united show of grief that rang out across Murray Street, Manoora.

About 100 members of the Cairns Torres Strait community walked en masse to the Manoora park, adjacent to the home in which eight children were slain sometime on Thursday night or Friday morning.

One man, believed to be the father of the youngest victims was inconsolable, his grief so physically debilitating he was unable to walk without assistance.