North-South Sudan Border Impasse To End Soon: Minister

 

The GoSS Minister of Information Dr. Barnaba Marial told the press in his Juba office Tuesday that the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) and the National Congress Party (NCP) have already cleared 80 percent of the outstanding border issue.

He said the remaining bit should not cause alarm as the talks were progressing smoothly between the two parties, adding that the border issue will be resolved before the end of the interim period.
 

“The border issue is no longer a big challenge between the two regions. There are several countries with similar cases that have taken decades without resolving border issues yet continue living in peace”, Barnaba said while citing Halai, a contested region between Sudan and Egypt that has stayed for 50 years without being resolved.
 

The South-North border is one of the protocols spelt out in the CPA.

Early last week the SPLM Secretary- General Pagan told the media that he is optimistic the two sides will reach the final agreements on the border issue by March this year.

Meanwhile, a tug of war looms between the Government of Southern Sudan and the Khartoum-based Government of National Unity over the relocation of learning facilities to the South.

The GoSS Minister of Higher Education Joseph Ukel told the press in Juba that the North was still clinging onto the facilities of South Sudanese universities.

He, however, said that despite the impediments, GoSS has already relocated 80 percent of South Sudanese students studying in the North.

During the more than two decades of civil war between South and North Sudan, South Sudan’s university campuses namely: The University of Juba, Bahr el Ghazal and Upper Nile were transferred to the North.

As part of the post- referendum preparations, GoSS has prioritised the relocation of campuses of South Sudanese universities back to the South before the end of the interim period of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement.

An estimated 3,000 South Sudanese students have been studying in the North under the GoSS scholarship programme for returnee students who took refuge in the Diaspora.

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