South Sudan Links Embassies to Online Passport System

(JUBA) – South Sudan is pressing ahead with plans to connect all its embassies, states and administrative areas to a central online system for passport and nationality services, as new equipment and thousands of document booklets arrive in the country.

The Director General of Civil Registration and Immigration, Maj. Gen. Elia Kosta Faustino, said the expansion has already cut passport processing times to between two and three days.

He said a shipment of 5,000 new passport booklets has arrived, bringing the total received since January 2026 to 38,600 passport booklets and 237,500 nationality certificate booklets.

The Directorate has also taken delivery of five production machines. Two are for passports and three are for nationality documents. A further 100 mobile registration kits have been acquired to improve service delivery across the country.

Maj. Gen. Kosta said the new resources mean most applicants can now receive their documents within two to three days.

He added that more than 400 passports have already been produced and delivered to South Sudanese who applied through the embassy in Egypt. The embassy is now linked to the Directorate headquarters through an online system.

The government is working to extend this online connection to all South Sudanese embassies abroad, the country’s 10 states and its three administrative areas. The aim, Maj. Gen. Kosta said, is to make passport and nationality services more accessible and efficient for citizens.

In related news, more than 100 stranded South Sudanese nationals have been allowed to enter Sudan after authorities resolved a dispute over their travel documents. The group crossed into Sudan through the Argeen border crossing, where they completed immigration procedures before beginning their journey home.

The returnees are expected to travel through Dongola and Khartoum to White Nile State before crossing into South Sudan via the Joda border.

The passengers had been stranded aboard the Egyptian vessel Sinai for days after Sudanese authorities denied them entry for lacking Sudanese travel documents. Egyptian authorities had also declined to allow them back into Egypt.

The cost of the new passport booklets was not stated in local currency.