February 9, 2025 (PORT SUDAN) – Reversing the ban on issuing passports to individuals on restricted lists requires legal amendments, a police official said. Sudan’s Sovereign Council Chairman and army commander, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, on Saturday directed the Passports and Immigration Department of the Interior Ministry to ensure no Sudanese citizen is denied passports and identification documents. Al-Burhan met on Sunday with Khaled Hassan, the Director General of Police Forces, and Osman Mohamed al-Hassan Dinkawi, the Director of the Passports and Immigration Department. “A change in the law and the restricted lists regulations is necessary to allow citizens to obtain identity documents, including passports, while the travel ban will be enforced at known border crossings,” Dinkawi said in a press statement published by the Sovereign Council. He noted that the government led by then-Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok, who resigned, amended the travel lists regulation in 2020, preventing relevant authorities from issuing passports to anyone on the restricted lists. “Under this amendment, the law prohibited the issuance of passports, considering it a travel document, not an identity document,” he added. Before the 2020 amendment, the legal ban allowed citizens to obtain passports as identification documents within and outside the country, without …

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