South Sudan urges foreign embassies to cooperate on registration of aliens

By Benjamin Takpiny

The government has urged foreign embassies in Juba to cooperate with immigration officials to register their nationals living in the country.

Lt. Gen Atem Marol Biar, Director General for Civil Registry, Nationality, Pass port and Immigration on Wednesday requested all foreign embassies to cooperate with his department to ascertain the number of foreigners in South Sudan.

“This silent search we are doing is for the good of our security and also foreign nationals and citizens of South Sudan, we just need to identify foreign nationals who are staying with us,” said Biar in a statement issued in Juba.

He disclosed that they are aware of high number of foreigners in South Sudan staying without documentation, adding that this poses security risk.

“We have found out that 95 percent of foreign nationals have no legal documents, some might have but they don’t come to immigration for renewal, some when they arrived in the country threw their passports away,” said Biar.

Biar added that embassies operating in the capital will be requested to provide the data of their respective nationals who are living in the country, adding that this when done will benefit all parties.

 “When they want to renew their passports they will come to us and their embassies,” he said.

He said that the transitional unity government aims to know details of all people staying in the country.