Sudan, South Sudan reopen borders for the first time in 9 years

KHARTOUM – The governments of Sudan and South Sudan have for the first time in nine (9) years reopened their borders after a high-level security delegation from South Sudan visit Khartoum this week, according to the ministry of defense.

Colonel Lam Paul Gabriel, the SPLA-IO deputy spokesman and defense ministry spokesman, said in a brief social media statement that the Upper Nile-White Nile state border crossing point was reopened during a ceremony in Kosti on Tuesday.

“On 27/10/2020, the Minister of Defense & Veterans Affairs Hon Angelina Jany Teny and her Sudanese Counterpart Hon. Yassin Ibrahim led a High Level delegations from South Sudan and Sudan to witness the long awaited official reopening of the borders between the two sisterly Countries in Kosti, White Nile State,” the defense ministry official said in the statement.

Borders between Sudan and South Sudan were shut up in 2012 following the Heglig crisis which saw South Sudan armed forces, the SPLA-IO, taking over Heglig, a disputed border town near Unity state, for almost one week in April that year.

In September the same year, the two countries signed the Cooperation Agreement in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, providing for the reopening of the two countries’ borders, but the agreement has never been implemented.

Following the outbreak of South Sudanese civil war in December 2013, hundreds of South Sudanese civilians fled to Sudan to seek refuge.

Earlier this month, Sudan’s President of the Transitional Sovereign Council General Abdel Fattah al Burhan said during the signing of the Sudanese peace agreement in Juba that South Sudanese will no longer need visas to visit Sudan.

This is in line with the cooperation agreement which guarantee Four Freedoms: “freedom of residence, freedom of movement, freedom to undertake economic activity and freedom to acquire and dispose property.”

President Salva Kiir has also ordered the implementation of the four freedoms.