About 80 students still stranded in India face detention Sudan Radio Service Juba, 18/7/2012 - It has been nine months now since South Sudanese students in India aired grievances over passport issue. Two months after South Sudan gained independence from Sudan, the students reported that Sudanese embassy in New Delhi declined to renew their expired passports. However, Indian immigration policies stipulate that anyone found illegal in the country is liable to seven-year imprisonment. Naturally, the authorities cannot issue stay visas to those with invalid passports. As a result, the students do not move freely for fear of being detained by the police. SRS spoke to some of the students on the issue and they are calling on the government to intervene. “The passport we are using is for the united Sudan but we are not allowed to renew it at the Sudan embassy. I need the South Sudan government help us here or to talk directly to the Indian authorities – let them know that we do not have South Sudanese passport because the country attained independence while we were here,” said Mike Thompson, a law student. “Yes they have already expired. We have a lot of problems over that right now. We don’t know you what to do and yet there is no embassy here. If they caught us, they would just take us to jail,” said Wan Kur who is studying Business Management a Bangalore University. Hassan Kur finished his degree course last year but he can’t travel back home because his passport expired. “My visa expired and my passport also expired and I am holding north Sudanese passport. The Sudanese embassy here in India, cannot renew our passports. So, it’s hard for us to travel from India back to South Sudan without a passport. Our embassy has not been opened here in India. This is the problem we are experiencing,” said Kur. There are about eighty government-sponsored students studying in various universities in India.Currently, South Sudan has no diplomatic mission in India.
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