S. Sudan retrieves village chiefs on an active part to crackdown foreigners with no legal visas, instructs security operatives to engage different embassies for cooperation

Lt. Gen. Atem Marol Biar, South Sudan’s immigration head, has halted the quiet hunt for foreign people without valid visas and work permits for a week to enable them to legitimize their presence in the country.

Also, the country’s Directorate of Immigration, Nationality, and Passport revealed a plan to use area leaders (Skeikh el Hila) to identify the defaulters in their areas.

During a news conference this morning in Juba, General Marol urged immigration officials to work with the leaders of foreign nationals in the country to assist in identifying and processing the unregistered.

“You stop quiet search and stay at your workplaces while engaging them to register. And stop wearing your police uniform when you go to meet their community leaders so they don’t fear you, because I’ve seen people run away when they see you going to them,” Marol told reporters.

Marol also ordered that all unregistered foreign nationals be issued three-month temporary residence permits by Migration officials.

“They must be granted temporary stay permits for three months while they visit their respective embassies to complete their documents,” he said.

“A large number of foreigners are living in South Sudan without papers and are not refugees. Refugees are the only ones who may remain without papers, but we have compromised them by creating a new document called temporary stay permits. It is a paper that we created,” he said.

According to a senior police official, the government is not chasing away people from other nations, but rather requesting them to register in order to legitimize their presence.

“If they do not show up for registration, we will still engage their leaders to assist us convince them to legitimize their stay by obtaining a new passport, and those with expired passports will not be charged,” he said.