Australia: South Sudanese community leaders say suicide among young people is 'out of control'

At 6'4" and with an eye-popping vertical leap, Oyiti Amum was flying high.

Studying in the United States on a scholarship worth thousands, he was doing what he loved — playing basketball.

He was a world away from his home in the south-eastern suburbs of Melbourne and war-torn South Sudan, where his family had escaped from when he was just three.

But in 2020, COVID-19 lockdowns and border closures forced Oyiti back to Australia. 

A few months later, he was dead.

His father, Nyibil Amum, told 7.30^[1] the moment police knocked on his door was a moment he would never forget. 

"It was a bad experience. It's something I will not forget in my life," he said. 

Oyiti — remembered as a friendly, social and vibrant person — had died by suicide.

Nyibil Amum said his son had checked himself into hospital three weeks earlier, but never recovered.

"He spent three days in hospital; after three days he was told he could go home, but we learned later Oyiti needed to be watched, because he was on suicide watch," he said. 

"He was given anti-depressants, but he wasn't taking his medication.

"He had to attend appointments and he would always tell us, 'I want to attend my appointments', but we later learned he wasn't attending his appointments." 

The impact of intergenerational trauma

Community health groups say suicide is one of the leading causes of death among young men within the South Sudanese community. 

Nyibil Amum says the rate at which young people are taking their lives is "completely out of control". 

"It's something completely unbelievable happening in the community, and we're trying to stop [it]," he said. 

The data on suicide in the community is hard to quantify, and very little research has been done in the area.

South Sudanese leaders say the stigma around depression is preventing the collection of accurate data, but a 2017 study found refugees were three times more likely to be suffering from a mental illness.

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Mr Amum believes the trauma experienced by South Sudanese people who have fled their devastated homeland has carried through to young people in the community.

"They were war-affected refugees, but there was no counselling … so this is the consequence," he said. 

"And when they come here, everything is fine and [you can] forget it — but intergenerational trauma follows people." 

Mr Amum now dedicates his life to preventing suicides in the community, and recently completed a fundraising walk from Melbourne to Sydney.

"If something has already happened I need to overcome it; I need to now focus on my sons and my daughters but also other people in the community … we need to stop these kinds of tragedies," he said.

'Growing up, nobody talks about it' 

James Luak, another South Sudanese community leader, agrees that the issue is worsening and cites intergenerational trauma and racism as a key factor causing severe mental health issues in the community.

"For example, if you're doing good in the community and you hear in the media [about] African gangs ... they're pretty much demolishing all the goodness you have within yourself," he said.

"I have lost about seven friends purely [from] mental illness, whether it be through alcohol, taking drugs, or isolating yourself, and as I said, growing up, nobody talks about it.

"That really affected me because I lost so many friends that I grew up with, and that's when I was like, maybe if I don't do anything about it, I might lose myself as well."

Balancing his 12-hour day job as a truck driver and raising nine children, James now runs an R&B club which is designed to be a safe space for young people to discuss their mental health.

But he acknowledges the situation won't improve until more culturally specific resources are made available and more awareness of the issue is raised.

"I was suicidal once, but now I'm ... freely talking about it because I understand the causes of it," he said. 

"The sooner we come to [the] community [and] acknowledge the key factors that contribute to mental illness, [then] we can have a long-term plan and a strategy to tackle this very serious issue."

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