Town mourns boy, 5, drowned in Murray

Residents of the NSW-Victoria border town of Moama say they are devastated following the recovery of the body of a five-year-old boy in the Murray River allegedly drowned by his mother.

Police divers found the body about 11.35am on Saturday.

Although still to be formally identified police believe it to be that of the five-year-old son of a woman, 27, who allegedly tried to drown both her sons on Thursday.

The boy's nine-year-old brother is in a stable condition at the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne.

The woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, has been charged with attempted murder and it is understood she will be held in custody at Albury over the weekend.

Further charges are expected to be laid.

"He was so little. Five years old, he's barely lived," said one local woman of the discovery of the child's body in waters near Perricootta Road, northwest of Moama, on Saturday afternoon.

"It's devastating," she added after she and her young daughter placed a bouquet of flowers on a chain link fence near the scene.

The woman said the stretch of water where the boy was found is normally associated with people enjoying the Murray.

"Yesterday no houseboats or speed boats were allowed here as police were searching," she said.

"Now they're all back, like it's all normal."

By 2pm on Saturday normal activity had returned to the river and its banks, with boats and wake boarders sailing past the spot where the boy's body was pulled from the water just hours earlier.

Other Moama residents hope Saturday's discovery will give his family closure.

"It's good that he's been found," said an employee from a nearby motel.