Sudan to deliver residence cards to 500,00 South Sudanese

December 21, 2014 (KHARTOUM) - The Sudanese government agreed to deliver residence permits to South Sudanese refugees enabling them to circulate and to work in the neighbouring country.

South Sudanese refugees cook on an open fire at a camp run by the Sudanese Red Crescent Society in the western part of Sudan’s White Nile state on 27 January 2014 (Photo: AFP/Ashraf Shazly)

The memorandum of understanding was signed in Khartoum by the Sudanese interior ministry and the UN refugees agency (HCR), the two sides confirmed on Sunday.

The agreement allows the South Sudanese to resident, and to work and to move freely inside the country, said UNHCR’s representative in Sudan Mohammed Addar.

He further said the agency will support the General Directorate of Passports and Immigration at the Sudanese ministry of interior to register and deliver these cards to all the South Sudanese in the country.

The deal will allow to regularise the situation of nearly 500,000 South Sudanese residing in Sudan including over 350,000 who didn’t return to their areas after the independence of South Sudan.

The memorandum was inked by the director of passports and immigration service Ahmed Atta al-Mannan, refugees commissioner Hamad al-Jezouli and the UNHCR representative Addar.

In line with the agreement, the ID card will be delivered free of charge to all the South Sudanese in Sudan.

Since the eruption of the inter-South Sudanese conflict in December, Sudan received some 111,000 people who fled the war through the northern border.

Earlier this month the Sudanese presidency directed to register and determine the increasing number of South Sudanese refugees in Sudan.

(ST)