South Sudan offers ‘safe’ options for refugee repatriation

JUBA – South Sudan government has announced the introduction of “secure” options for refugees residing in the country to return to their respective home-countries.

Dut Akol, the Director General for Protection at the Commission for Refugee Affairs, outlined a range of safe options to ensure that refugees willing to return to their countries of origin have the opportunity to do so.

“We have already an open-door policy for all refugees, we have settlements and refugees living in the country can access land through the host communities, and once they have 10 or more years, they are also eligible to apply for nationalization,” he said.

Akol was speaking during a panel discussion on the mitigation of statelessness in the country’s capital Juba.

The options available to refugees include voluntary repatriation, resettlement, and nationalization.

Refugees, particularly Sudanese nationals, in South Sudan enjoy freedom of residence, movement, ownership, and work, in accordance with the 2012 cooperation agreement signed between the two countries.

Ukidi Moi Ugura, the Deputy Director General for Civil Registry, Nationality, Passport and Immigration, said that the government is issuing nationality documents in collaboration with embassies to South Sudanese refugees in neighboring countries.

“In Uganda, we have many applications, we have been supplying identity documents even in Egypt and other countries, our connection with our people outside is through our embassies,” he said.

Ramsey Bryant, Senior Protection Officer for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), said that the organization is working to ensure that every refugee acquires nationality documentation.

“We have seen it is right to every individual to belong to a country, it is a right of every one to have identity document, absence of identity document could lead to other issues,” he said.

South Sudan itself has a significant refugee population, with nearly 2.4 million South Sudanese refugees living in countries around the world. This makes it one of the largest refugee crises in Africa and the fifth largest globally.

According to the UNHCR, the majority of those fleeing South Sudan are women and children who are survivors of violent attacks, sexual assault, and in many cases, children are traveling alone.