ReliefWeb

A new study has found the majority of refugees from Sudan who arrived in Australia over the past decade want to return home.

Many of those surveyed experienced isolation and reported being discriminated against, particularly when it came to employment and housing.

Nyok Gor is one of around 23,000 Sudanese refugees who fled to Australia over the past decade.

He arrived in late 2003 as one of the "lost boys of Sudan".

He began studying at university, but found it difficult to get work and accommodation.

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"While I was looking for accommodation, that was one of the areas that I felt discriminated," he said.

"As a student I was looking for share accommodation and somebody would be calling to organise some of the houses that I was interested to apply for, and when I turn up later would tell me sorry we don't have enough room.

"There were other cases where somebody would ask me over the phone what background do you come from and I would say an African background and they would say no sorry we don't have available room for you."

According to the study by international policy research agency, STATT, that was a common problem among the 350 people surveyed.

STATT researcher Robert Onus says most people found there were good support services provided by the Government, but their ability to get help differed between cities and regional areas.

"People in regional areas felt quite a bit of isolation, particularly because the people that were settled in regional areas didn't have access to some of the support networks that people in bigger cities would have with the larger communities," he said.

"The other thing is definitely with regards to employment.

"A lot of people have worked hard to get skills and develop their skills in Australia.

"They've done education in Australia but they can't seem to get jobs in areas that they feel that they're skilled at working in."

Mr Onus says many people felt potential employers discriminated against them based on their race.

"On the other hand I think it's the question of getting skills, job skills in the Australian market," he said.

"A lot of people don't have the resume that local people might have or people that have been in Australia for a longer time might have."

The study released today also found that since South Sudan gained independence, many people want to return home.

"About 90 per cent of people had signalled that they would be intending to return. That includes both temporarily and permanently," he said.

"When it comes to more permanent return, people had a range of opinions about how long they would go and for what reasons."

But Mr Onus says most people who wanted to return to South Sudan did not hold negative opinions of Australia.

"It was very much a question of going home to support the development of their new nation and there's really a lot of positive energy and enthusiasm in the community towards helping the South Sudanese nation develop and repatriating the skills that they've gained here," he said.