Why is the journey home so difficult to make for the half a million South Sudanese stranded in Sudan?
NAIROBI (AlertNet) – Half a million South Sudanese are stranded in Sudan, where they moved many years ago to escape the war back home. They don’t have the necessary papers to legitimise their stay or to return to the newly independent South Sudan.
The African Union has called for the situation to be urgently resolved. “The southern citizens in the north have become not only de facto stateless, but are extremely vulnerable,” it said in a statement last week.
“I urge the government of South Sudan to expedite the process of issuing the necessary documentation to its citizens in Sudan, and Sudan to extend the citizenship transitional period to enable this process to be completed,” AU chairman, Jean Ping, said.
Why is the journey so difficult to make?
- Khartoum requires all returnees to carry emergency travel documentation, issued by South Sudan’s Khartoum embassy. But progress is slow. Most southerners in Sudan lack birth certificates and other identity papers.
- In March, the two governments initialled a framework granting each others’ nationals the “four freedoms” of residence, work, travel and property ownership. But the agreement was never signed due to escalating tensions.
- Travel by road is complicated by the state of the roads and insecurity in many areas. Road travel from the port of Renk, where most returnees enter South Sudan, to Malakal, the capital of Upper Nile State, is only possible for a couple of months of the year during the dry season. By mid-May, the only means of transporting returnees south of Renk will be by barge and boat.
- The majority of returnees wish to travel to South Sudan’s western border states of Northern Bahr el Ghazal and Western Bahr el Ghazal. But insecurity is forcing them to travel in a gigantic U, from Renk port, on South Sudan’s northeastern border, southwards to the capital Juba, and then back up northwards to the western side.
- The total journey within South Sudan to the returnees’ final destination can take more than three months. It takes two to three weeks to load barge convoys with people and luggage, up to two weeks to travel from Renk port to Juba, another two to three weeks to unload the barges in Juba, four to six weeks in Juba for the onward convoys to be organised and loaded up, and another three to five days by road to reach Bahr el Ghazal.
See also: Sudan departure deadline for southerners impossible to meet -IOM
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