Sudan and South Sudan will be reopening borders after 11 years of closure. This development was announced after a meeting between South Sudan President Salva Kiir and Sudan’s Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok.
According to a press statement from the office of the President of South Sudan, the two parties also agreed on the re-opening of water transportation.
The official reopening will take place on October 1, 2021. The borders were closed in 2011 during Omar Bashir’s regime when relations deteriorated after the south seceded following a long civil war, taking with it three-quarters of the country’s oil.
Over a decade ago, South Sudan and Sudan closed much of the 2,000 borders in 2011, hitting traders and communities on both sides of the disputed line.
In January 2016, Former President Omar Hassan al-Bashir of Sudan ordered the opening of his country’s border with South Sudan but this did not last.