Eritreans arrested over illegal entry in South Sudan

By Lodu William Odiya
At least 14 Eritrean Nationals have been arrested over illegal entry in South Sudan’s Northern Bahr El Ghazal while cruising to Sudan.
While addressing the media yesterday, Maj. Gen. Elia Costa Faustino, the Director General in the Directorate of Civil Registry, Nationality, Passports, and Immigration confirmed that the arrest was on 10th of this month.
“We managed to arrest about 14 Eritrean passing through to Sudan. 14, 13 are male and one female, all from Eritrea. So, we managed to take them back to Juba here” he stated.
“They are now with us in the headquarters of immigration for the purpose of investigation. And we have opened a case against them according to the Immigration Act” he added.
He underscored the Immigration department are arresting many of Eritrean coming from Eritrea moving to Sudan through South Sudan.
According to Costa, there might be a network which organized them to move from South Sudan border to Sudan border.
“We are going to make an investigation with them to know those who are facilitating their movement. we know that it is human trafficking which is happening because they are crossing South Sudan to Sudan, then from Sudan to Libya, then from there to Europe” he explained.
Costa called for collaboration in order to abolish the movement of people without proper documents along the country’s territory.
“I am urging all our people so that we join our hands together for those people who are coming through our land or through our territory to go to the other countries” he stated.
“We are not rejecting people to come to South Sudan. But you must come through legal procedures. You must have a document, the passport or any other document so that we can allow you to enter South Sudan” he explained.
Costa urged the Eritrean embassy, Somalia and then Ethiopia cooperate in order to fight against the illegal movement.
He underscored the most of those arrested were young men between the ages of 17 and 20, and that the group included one underage girl.
He underlined that the authority will notify the Eritrean embassy here in Juba about those who were arrested so that the embassy knows their whereabout.