JUBA, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) --- More than 17,400 South Sudan refugee returnees have received national identity cards to enable them to access essential services, officials said Thursday.
This is part of a joint project backed by the European Union and the UN Refugee Agency or UNHCR, targetting South Sudanese who have come back from being refugees in other countries, as well as persons at risk of statelessness across the country.
UN Assistant High Commissioner for Refugees Raouf Mazou and EU Ambassador to South Sudan Timo Olkkonen attended an event Wednesday for the project in Yei, a town in Central Equatoria state.
"The Wednesday ceremony was particularly timely and comes within a few weeks of South Sudan formally acceding to the two conventions of statelessness, a significant step for a country that faces unique challenges to integrate large numbers of returning citizens from neighboring countries," Mazou said in a statement issued in Juba, the capital of South Sudan.
He said that while most of the refugees coming back from Uganda and Kenya to South Sudan do so voluntarily, the situation is particularly dire for the hundreds of thousands who have come back from Sudan since April 2023, when fighting erupted between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.
"Many had never lived in South Sudan, and for them, the risk of statelessness can be high and further action is needed," Mazou said.
The issuance of ID cards provides South Sudanese citizens who are coming to their country with a legal identity as an essential first step to access rights and services, the UN Refugee Agency said. It also opens new avenues for employment, financial inclusion and access to education.
Olkkonen said the nationality document is not just a bureaucratic requirement, but a fundamental right enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
This accomplishment, the EU envoy said, underscores the EU's commitment to enhancing services across key sectors such as civil documentation, education, health, and livelihoods for internally displaced persons (IDPs), returnees, and host communities throughout South Sudan.
Simon Majur, director general of South Sudan's Directorate of Civil Registry, Nationality, Passport, and Immigration, said the government is committed to expanding access to civil documentation to support reintegration and national development.
"Having a national identity card empowers returnees and displaced communities to access essential services such as education, healthcare, social protection, and formal employment," he said. ■
