Rewards draw Australia's South Sudanese 'home' Juba, South Sudan: Despite bombs dropping in the north, violent skirmishing throughout the countryside and a list of indicators that show South Sudan is one of the toughest places in the world to live, a wave of Australians are returning "home" to take part in rebuilding their new nation. This week, South Sudan celebrated the second anniversary of its independence amid simmering tensions with its former rulers in Khartoum and fears it is slipping further into the status of a failed state. If you have enough money to start a business you would succeed faster in South Sudan than Australia. But a growing number of South Sudanese who took refuge in Australia to escape the decades of civil war are now back in the capital Juba either starting businesses, working in non-governmental organisations or bolstering the ranks of a fragile public service. Jacklen Gai Kuai, 25 years old (right) visits Juba with her cousin Nyalalat Malual for the first time. Jacklen came to South Sudan to visit her father who has returned and to participate in the independence anniversary celebrations. Mandela Marino, 24, who studied accounting at Victoria University and had lived in Melbourne since he was nine, this month returned to Juba looking for work in the finance industry. Woes dim South Sudan's anniversary celebrations I would not be the same person if I had not lived in Australia. It helped me so much. You come here and realise. It's like doing time travel! There's no electricity, no roads, everything doesn't work. I mean when was Australia like this - the 18th century?" he said. Mandela Marino is 24 years old and recently moved from Melbourne back to Juba. Mandela is a keen boxer and trains at a local club in the capital. Awar Ayuel, 28, who first arrived in Australia in 2003, said one of his fondest memories of Australia was Friday night at Blacktown RSL in Sydney's west, home to a large South Sudanese community. "Beer and the buffet and some pool with my mates, it was great," he said. But returning to Juba last month has presented challenges, especially for his business. Celebrations go all through the night in Juba as South Sudanese people celebrate their 2nd anniversary since independence. Sometimes they openly tell you: 'You guys ran away and you are coming back now that it's all OK. So why don't you guys stay there?' They try to cheat you. Straight out, people can pick you. The way you do your things, the way you talk. Juac Athian, 44, lived in Brisbane from 1998 until he opened a small trading shop in the heart of Juba in 2007. It was difficult the first time I came here. I am used to it now," he said. Juac Athian moved back to South Sudan in 2007. Juac arrived in Australia in 1998 and after completing a bachelors of electrical engineering he has decided to return to Southa Sudan to open a private business. Language barriers, 50 competing tribal groups and local cultures all make life difficult for those accustomed to the Australian way, he said. They grow up in Australia where everyone has a right to talk but when you come here, if you are a young man, you can't. "In the end we have qualifications and they don't - sure there are tribal differences, but they have to accept us so we can be one nation," he said. Pre-independence celebrations in South Sudan. The South Sudanese diaspora is relatively small in terms of Australian migrant groups. According to the 2011 Census, there are 19,369 Sudan-born people in Australia, an increase of 1.7 per cent from the 2006 Census. Victoria is home to 6085, followed by New South Wales with 5629, Western Australia (2722) and Queensland (2582). Despite the limited numbers it seems most in Juba have a friend or relative in Australia. We even bumped into a young boy wearing a green and gold "Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, oi, oi oi" T-shirt his sister sent him from Melbourne. It's an unique relationship considering most refugees went to neighbouring African countries like Kenya, Ethiopia or Uganda and the major aid money flows in from the US and Britain. But since the Comprehensive Peace Agreement of 2005, which led to a referendum that voted for independence from Sudan, the International Organisation for Migration estimates more than 2 million refugees scattered across the globe have returned home. Robert Onus from STATT, an organisation that works with transnational communities, researched South Sudanese living in Australia and found that unlike Afghan and Kosovar Australians, South Sudanese express strong positive emotions about returning home. "As more South Sudanese-Australians return, there is a definite possibility that this new group of Australians will play a crucial role in shaping the trajectory of South Sudan," he told Fairfax Media. [Something] both Australia and South Sudan can be proud of. One of South Sudan's most senior public servants, Abdon Agaw, Secretary General of the Ministry of Cabinet Affairs, moved with his family to Australia in October 2001 after living in exile in Egypt during the 1990s. He moved back to Juba to help rebuild after the 2005 peace agreement and regularly visits his family who stayed behind in "Australia's best city," Canberra. Mr Agaw acknowledges the challenges facing the South Sudanese government but is optimistic that diasporas will return with necessary skills and business acumen. Opportunities are here. There are also opportunities in working for the government," he said. It was former immigration minister Philip Ruddock who launched Australia's African migration program after a visit in the late 1990s to Kakuma, the infamous United Nations refugee camp in Kenya's north. However by 2007 the Howard government had ramped up its anti-refugee rhetoric and after a spate of violent incidents Kevin Andrews, then immigration minister, claimed Sudanese people did not fit in to Australia. The comments enraged the Sudanese communities. A week later a Sudanese-born youth in Melbourne was brutally attacked. The attack came on the same day of the funeral for Sudanese-born teenager Liep Gony, who was bashed by two young men shouting racial abuse. While all the South Sudanese Fairfax Media spoke to had experienced a range of racial abuse or discrimination, and felt a sense of dislocation through dual citizenship, they were all positive about their time in Australia. South Sudan's Deputy Information Minister Atem Yaak, who joined his family in Gosford on the Central Coast of NSW in 2000, worked with civil society groups protesting the Howard government's policies and dismissed the anti-Sudanese backlash as "human frailty." There were problems. Some drinking and fighting. But most of our young people who went to Australia made or will contribute to the development of this country," he said. Mr Yaak has urged his government to replicate institutions like NSW's vocational training and police force. "We can learn a lot more from Australia," he said.