South Sudan, Sudan resumes talks on railway transport

January 18, 2022 (JUBA) – Sudan and South Sudan have resumed talks on a railway line linking the two countries, amid hopes the initiative would accelerate the delivery of goods and facilitate the movement of people.

South Sudan’s advisor on presidential affairs, Costello Garang Lual said discussion were with different institutions and top government officials in neighbouring Sudan to fast track the railway transport issue.

The official, who is currently in Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, said  he met the chairman of Sudan’s Sovereign Council, Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan who was positive about re-opening of the railway link.

“This project is very important to the two countries, South Sudan and Sudan, and even during the civil war our people were not basing their travels on passports because if they want to travel to Daien or Borum they go without any arrangement”, Lual told reporters in Khartoum.

According to the presidential advisor, several senior government officials welcomed talks between the two nations aimed at reopening the railway for trade and movement into the Bahr el Ghazal region.

In December last year, a delegation from Al-Basim Railway company in Sudan visited Western Bahr el Ghazal State to assess and commence rehabilitation works on the railway linking the two nations.

The company’s visit a followed a Memorandum of Understanding signed by the government in Juba on the resumption of railway transport.

Lual said the two countries are seeking to revive the railway line linking the areas Babanosa and Wau to boost trade and business in neighboring states.

“I have been assigned to re-open the transportation between South Sudan and Sudan and also the business”, he stressed.

Railway transport ceased operation during Sudan’s civil war in 1991, but briefly commence when it was re-opened by Sudan’s ex-President Omar Al Bashir in March 2010. The railway was closed following South Sudan’s secession from Sudan in 2011.

(ST)