The South Sudanese Embassy in Kenya says South Sudanese traveling to East African countries will no longer pay visa fees from early next year.

This follows the admission of the country into the East African Community.

President Salva Kiir signed the treaty of accession into the bloc last month, making South Sudan the sixth member of the bloc.

“There are protocols that are in place to be implemented, and South Sudanese will be exempted from paying visa fees, as well as, South Sudan will not charge the East African Community members to go to Juba or any other part of the country,” said the South Sudan Diplomatic Representative, Jimmy Deng Makuac, during an interview with Eye Radio.

“This will be sometime early next year, it might be January or February, and it just depends on the implementation of these protocols.”

Nationals of East African Community States including Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda and now South Sudan, do not require visas to travel to the other EAC member states.

They use valid national passports to travel within the region, or use the East African Passport, which was introduced as a travel document to ease border crossing for East Africans.