South Sudan’s Ambassador to Uganda has advised South Sudanese travelling to Rwanda via Kampala without a passport to obtain another temporary pass to avoid detention.

Simon Juac Deng says the Rwandan immigration authorities showed him a number of invalid travel documents that were seized from South Sudanese.

Juac also testified that in June, the embassy was forced to intervene after 18 volleyball players travelling back to Kampala from Rwanda were held at the border over travel documents.

The diplomat has advised South Sudanese against the use of a travel document to cross East African countries.

Juac adds that it is mainly used when one loses a passport.

“I was shown travel documents of South Sudanese, they go by road to Nimule, get a travel document that I’m going to Uganda and they use that travel document to enter Rwanda and another country, which is wrong,” Amb Juac told Eye Radio in an exclusive interview on Friday.

“By law, it is an emergency document, you only get it when you are passport is lost to go back home. But people think it is a document that can take them through different countries, that’s one thing I also found there [Rwanda],” he said.

“I was shown a number of documents and I also have a testimony, in June, a volleyball team from South Sudan went to play in Uganda, the team of about 18 people almost all of them on travelling documents and then they decided to proceed from Uganda to Rwanda.”

“They were held at the border for about 6 hours until we had to send new travelling documents from the embassy to say these people are now travelling from Kampala to Kigali and back. So, our people also need to understand how immigration works.”

Ambassador Simon Juac explains the right procedures for South Sudanese who want to travel to Rwanda.

“If you don’t have a passport, you need to state clearly in your travelling document, if you say you are going to Kampala, you need to get another document saying you are going from Kampala to Kigali,” said Ambassador Juac.

“You cannot use the one from Nimule saying you are going to Kampala to go to Kigali with it, so that’s wrong. It is just because it is the same region we understand our situation that’s why sometimes people are allowed to travel, but by law it is illegal it is not acceptable,” he said.

“We know it is difficult for people who cannot get all the passports but just people know, that if you have emergency you just go and get another travel document.”