Over 70 South Sudanese stranded aboard ‘voluntary return’ ferry in Aswan after Sudan refuses entry, Egypt bars return

A cross-border ferry is sitting in the waters of Lake Nasser, opposite the High Dam port in Aswan. On board are over 70 South Sudanese men, women and children who set out on a trip that was supposed to take them through Sudan and on to South Sudan. But Sudan refused to let them disembark, and when they returned to Egypt, Egypt refused to take them back. For the past week, they have remained stranded in a legal and diplomatic limbo. Their presence on the ferry was an exception. The Sinai normally carries Sudanese nationals under Khartoum’s “voluntary return” campaign, which, since early 2025 has transported hundreds of thousands of Sudanese out of Egypt and into areas under Sudanese military control. The campaign is coordinated by Sudanese-led return committees in Egypt, Sudanese authorities and Egyptian officials. But this time, 107 South Sudanese nationals were also allowed to board under what a senior figure in one such committee in Cairo, who is involved in the operation, described to Mada Masr as “exceptional humanitarian circumstances.” Most had been living in Egypt with expired residency permits or expired South Sudanese passports, a Sudanese coordinator in a return committee informed of the arrangements told Mada Masr. According to a relative of one of the stranded passengers, their names were supposed to be processed separately, with South Sudanese representatives receiving them after they crossed into Sudan at the Wadi Halfa port on the other side of the border to arrange the final stretch of their trip back home. That handover never happened. Only around 30 passengers were allowed into Sudan. Accounts of officials in Sudan and South Sudan, organizers of the return program, Sudanese security sources and the family member suggest that somewhere between Cairo, Aswan and Wadi Halfa, key steps in those arrangements fell through, leaving 76 people waiting aboard a ferry for seven days in Aswan’s summer heat while the three governments attempt to negotiate a solution. *** On June 25, passengers boarded one of the latest designated trains from Cairo’s Ramses Railway Station to Aswan as part of Sudan’s “voluntary return” campaign, launched after the military regained control of Khartoum in March 2025, to bring back Sudanese who fled the war and demonstrate the restoration of  state authority. The Egyptian National Railways Authority and Sudan’s Defense Industries System have operated dozens of such trips since July 2025. According to a Sudanese coordinator in a return committee who is informed of the arrangements, every stage of the operation is, in principle, coordinated in advance. Sudanese-led return committees in Egypt register applicants and verify their documents before Egyptian and Sudanese authorities arrange their journey south by rail or road to Aswan. From there, returnees continue either by ferry to Wadi Halfa on the Sudanese side or by bus through the Argeen and Ashkeet border crossings. The system is intended exclusively for Sudanese nationals carrying passports, national ID numbers or other documents establishing their legal right to enter Sudan, the source said. After a 14-hour journey, the train arrived at the High Dam station east of Aswan. Among the passengers were 107 South Sudanese nationals. Most had been living in Egypt with expired residency permits or expired South Sudanese passports, while several children had no identification documents, the source said. Such cases require arrangements outside the program’s normal procedures, they added. The group believed that such arrangements had been made and nothing suggested they were boarding a trip that had not already been cleared. Argun Atim, a relative of one of the passengers who lives in Egypt, said the group had submitted requests through the voluntary return committees and was told they would travel under special arrangements. Their names would be kept separate from those of the Sudanese returnees, he said, and they were told representatives of South Sudan would receive them after they crossed into Sudan and arrange the remainder of their journey. According to Atim, the process appeared entirely official. Egyptian authorities screened the passengers and checked their documents before boarding, and the ferry sailed on the basis of approved passenger lists and paperwork submitted to port authorities by the bodies coordinating the voluntary return program. But once the ferry reached the Sudanese side of the border, authorities refused to allow the South Sudanese passengers to disembark, citing their lack of documents authorizing entry into Sudan, according to the Sudanese coordinator informed of the arrangements. The Sinai returned to Aswan on June 26 with the South Sudanese passengers on board. But by then, the source said, they could no longer be readmitted to Egypt. Having been formally refused entry by Sudan, they have become, procedurally, passengers removed by another country. An Egyptian official informed of the situation says that since many of those on board lacked valid IDs, Egypt refused them entry because “we could no longer be sure those that were returning were the same that had departed from Aswan.” A senior Sudanese figure in Cairo’s Amal voluntary return committee insisted the group was included under exceptional arrangements coordinated in advance with Egyptian and Sudanese authorities, and under the supervision of Sudan’s Zakat Chamber, because of what they described as “the complex humanitarian circumstances” facing the group. Yet the Sudanese institutions cited by the Amal committee source dispute that. A senior official at the state-run Zakat Chamber — operating under the Sudanese Social Welfare Ministry — denied that the institution plays any procedural or diplomatic role in registering passengers, verifying their documents or determining who could travel. The chamber’s involvement, they said, is limited to providing financial support for certain humanitarian cases. “We are not involved in compiling passenger lists, reviewing documents or determining who is eligible to travel or cross the border. Those responsibilities rest with the relevant authorities and the coordinating committees,” the official said. The official added that the chamber has received no formal explanation of how the South Sudanese passengers came to be on board the Sinai or why their onward trip was disrupted. An official in Sudan’s embassy in Cairo likewise told Mada Masr the embassy only issues documents for Sudanese nationals and has no mandate to arrange travel for citizens of other countries. While previous cases involving Eritrean, Ethiopian and South Sudanese nationals had been handled through direct government-to-government coordination, the official said, no such coordination took place here. An official at Sudan’s Interior Ministry in Khartoum confirmed that Sudan has received neither a formal request nor prior notification from South Sudan regarding the passengers. Nor, the official said, have Egyptian authorities provided any formal clarification of the group’s legal status or travel documents. A senior figure involved in the return committees’ field operations in Aswan told Mada Masr that the group’s paperwork on their side appears to have fallen short of the program’s usual procedures. An initial internal review by the committees, the official said, found that several of the stranded passengers’ names did not appear on the original lists approved during the early stages of the return process for this group. An internal investigation is now examining whether those names were added during the final stages of coordination or registered under exceptional arrangements that did not meet the program’s usual verification procedures, they added. So far, according to the senior source, the committees have not reached any definitive conclusion about how this group was ultimately included in the trip. As the ferry remained stranded in Aswan, Egyptian and Sudanese officials quietly opened security and administrative channels to try and find a way out of the impasse, according to a Sudanese security source informed of operations at the Argeen border crossing. The discussions appeared to have produced a partial solution. Sudan agreed, as an exceptional measure, to admit 31 passengers after a separate screening process established their administrative ties to the disputed Abyei region, according to the security source and a second security source informed of the screening procedures that were carried out at Wadi Halfa port. The Sinai sailed back to Wadi Halfa on June 27, where the 31 passengers were allowed to disembark the following day, according to the two security sources. The remaining passengers stayed aboard. According to the second security source, the group from Abyei were “admitted and treated in accordance with the special legal status granted to the region’s residents. Those criteria did not apply to the remaining passengers, who are South Sudanese nationals with no documented administrative link to Abyei.” Located along the border between Sudan and South Sudan, Abyei remains one of the unresolved issues left by the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement that ended the Second Sudanese Civil War and laid the groundwork for South Sudan’s independence. Under the agreement’s Abyei protocol, the territory’s residents were granted a special interim legal status pending a final settlement of the area’s sovereignty. That status continues to give Abyei residents rights that distinguish them from ordinary citizens of either Sudan or South Sudan in certain administrative and border procedures, including freedom of movement and residence inside Sudan. The Sinai ferry returned once more carrying the remaining passengers to Aswan, where it is currently stranded with 76 people. The Sudanese Interior Ministry official placed responsibility on South Sudan for the lack of official coordination. An official at Sudan’s Commission for Refugees told Mada Masr that Sudan has long allowed nationals of neighboring countries to cross its territory. But such movements, the official said, have always been arranged through direct agreements between governments, embassies and the relevant security agencies. Community initiatives alone are not enough in such cases, the official said. Sudanese authorities require formal notification identifying the travelers, clarifying their legal status and specifying which authority will receive them after they enter the country. Without those guarantees, the official said, Sudanese authorities have no mechanism for processing people in transit. The Interior Ministry official argued that this is what happened with the Sinai passengers. South Sudan’s ambassador to Cairo Kuol Nyok Kuol confirmed that Sudanese authorities blocked 107 South Sudanese passengers from entering Sudan and called on Khartoum to allow the ferry to transit its territory so the rest of the passengers could continue to South Sudan. The ambassador told Mada Masr that the embassy has briefed South Sudan’s Foreign Ministry on the crisis, and that diplomatic contacts with Sudanese authorities are now underway to reach an urgent resolution. While the Egyptian official suggested a resolution was forthcoming, a political source in Cairo familiar with state decision making on Sudan disputed that claim to Mada Masr, saying that Egypt is using the stranded South Sudanese nationals to send a message to Juba that Cairo will reciprocate the poor treatment it believes Cairo has been dealt in recent months. A security source in Juba told Mada Masr that there are ongoing disputes between South Sudan and Egypt over the issue of the military base in the Jute-Pagak corridor in Upper Nile State that Juba asked Cairo to close in May. South Sudanese officials only learned of the issue of the stranded South Sudanese nationals through the media, the source added, arguing that Khartoum’s refusal to admit the passengers reflects an alignment between Sudan and Egypt’s increasingly firm position toward Juba. As the three countries discuss a solution, however imminent it may or may not be, those on board the Sinai continue to wait in Aswan’s scorching summer heat. The post Over 70 South Sudanese stranded aboard ‘voluntary return’ ferry in Aswan after Sudan refuses entry, Egypt bars return first appeared on Mada Masr .