Author: Obaj Okuj | Published: 5 hours ago
Maj. Gen. Elia Kosta Faustino addresses immigration personnel during a decoration parade on Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2026. While honoring the officers’ promotions, the Director General warned that anyone caught facilitating illegal passports for foreigners would face the full force of the law. Credit: SSBC
The Directorate of Civil Registry, Immigration, Nationality and Passports has announced plans to conduct a nationwide screening of foreigners living in South Sudan using SIM card registration to collect accurate data.
Speaking on Friday during the launch of new passport and ID card booklets, the Director General of the Directorate, Major General Elia Costa, said the exercise will cover all parts of the country and is aimed at establishing clear records of foreign nationals residing in South Sudan to improve documentation and monitoring.
Speaking during the announcement of the arrival of new passport and nationality booklets on Friday, Major General Costa said the government will rely on SIM card registration as a key tool in identifying and documenting foreigners.
“We are here to declare to our people that we are going to have a general screening for all the foreigners who are staying here in the Republic of South Sudan, so that we can know their data and how many foreigners are in the country,” Costa said.
“As I mentioned before, we are going to use SIM card registration. If you are registering any foreigner, you must use the SIM card. That is the reason why we are here today to declare this to our people.”
The Director General did not specify when the screening and registration process will begin.
Eye Radio in November, 2025, reported that the government was considering the use of SIM card registration to identify and document foreigners as part of broader efforts to strengthen national security and improve population data management.
The planned nationwide screening appears to be a continuation of those earlier measures, now set to be implemented across the country.
