South Sudan's English Daily Newspaper
"We Dare where others fear"
By Simon Deng
The Director General for Protection at the Commission for Refugee Affairs, Dut Akol has revealed a range of safe options to ensure refugees willing to return to their countries of origin are granted opportunity.
He said that some of the options include voluntary repatriation, resettlement, and nationalization.
“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,” said Akol during the panel discussion on mitigation of statelessness held at Pyramid Hotel in Juba.
He revealed that Sudanese refugees enjoy freedom of residence, freedom of movement, and freedom of ownership and freedom to work, according to the 2012 cooperation agreement signed between South Sudan and Sudan.
The agreement grants South Sudanese and Sudanese the right to own property, free movement, residence and employment in both countries.
“Currently, we have 2000 Anyuak refugees who have stayed for long in the country, we have more than 300 Sudanese refugees from Blue Nile and Nuba Mountains, they can be eligible according to the laws of South Sudan,” said Akol.
Ukidi Moi Ugura, the Deputy Director General for Civil Registry, Nationality, Passport and Immigration, said that they are issuing nationality documents in collaboration with the 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 they are 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,” said Bryant.
