Sudan Media Forum
Kampala, June 20, 2025 (Sudanile) – While official identification is a fundamental right, thousands of Sudanese refugees in Uganda face a starkly different reality. For them, obtaining an electronic passport, birth certificate, or national ID has become a financial ordeal that is simply beyond their reach.
Having fled the horrors of war in Sudan, they now confront exorbitant fees at the Sudanese embassy in Uganda—a barrier that prevents them from securing their most basic rights.
More than 6,000 people have already registered with the embassy in Kampala, with more arriving daily. The embassy has become a critical hub for Sudanese refugees from across the region, including those in neighboring Rwanda, Kenya, and Tanzania, and from camps within Uganda itself.
The embassy announced that its new electronic passport center officially began operations on Friday, June 13, after its network was linked with the Passports and Civil Registry Authority in Khartoum. In a press release, officials stated the center would process applicants from weekly published lists on Mondays and Thursdays, urging citizens to monitor the embassy’s Facebook page for schedules.
The official fees, approved by Sudan’s Ministry of Finance, were set at $250 for an adult e-passport, $125 for a child’s passport, and $25 for a replacement national ID.
Back-breaking fees
Refugees have reacted with outrage, noting that most arrived in Uganda with nothing after escaping the war and are completely dependent on humanitarian aid.
“How can you ask someone who has lost everything to pay $250 for a passport?” one refugee asked. “The irony is painful. You pay for a document to prove you belong to a country, but you have no real protection from that state—only from aid organizations.”
In a memo to Sudan’s newly appointed Prime Minister, Kamel Idris, refugee Musa Zouma called the fees an “unbearable burden” and urged the government to intervene. “We appeal to you to direct the Sudanese embassy in Uganda to reduce the passport fee to $100 and to issue birth certificates and national IDs to refugee children for free,” he wrote, emphasizing that most refugees live in dire conditions, sleeping on the ground and lacking adequate food and medicine.
Community leaders have echoed his call. Saleh Idris, head of the Sudanese refugee community in Uganda, requested an urgent meeting with the embassy to address the fees and ensure refugees in camps like Biyale are included in the registration process.
Adil Abdullah Nasruddin, another refugee, stressed that identity documents are a legal right, not a luxury. “These documents are vital for establishing a personal identity and accessing education, healthcare, and work,” he said. “Imposing these fees deepens the suffering of refugees and denies them their fundamental rights.” He argued that at $250 for a passport and $30 for a birth certificate, the state has stopped acting as a guardian of its citizens and is now profiting from their desperation.
“If the state cannot provide these services for free, it should at least charge a nominal fee,” Nasruddin concluded. “This would allow every citizen to claim their right to identity and dignity, instead of being left to face exclusion and deprivation.”
A Legal Alternative?
One refugee expressed confusion as to why people were pursuing Sudanese passports at all. She argued that once a person receives official refugee status, legal responsibility for them transfers to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), not their home country’s embassy.
She noted that the UNHCR offers a recognized international travel document for refugees that costs approximately 200,000 Ugandan shillings (under $100 USD). She considers this a safer and more legitimate alternative to seeking documents from a government that no longer assumes responsibility for them.
Crippling delays and network failures
The rollout of the new system has been plagued by technical issues. According to Sudanile, approximately 100 people scheduled for appointments arrived at the embassy last Friday. However, an unstable network connection to the passport headquarters in Port Sudan meant that most could not be processed. They were told to return on Monday.
This created a massive backlog, as Friday’s group merged with Monday’s scheduled applicants, leading to unprecedented crowds. The embassy then canceled Tuesday’s appointments, citing the “continued instability of the communication network,” and pushed all pending applications to Wednesday. The embassy has urged all applicants to monitor its Facebook page for further updates.
The Sudan Media Forum and its member institutions publish this material, prepared by “Sudanile,” to highlight the severe hardship faced by Sudanese refugees attempting to obtain official identity documents.
