registration in Sudan

Hello,

I have heard that foreigners travelling in Sudan have to register in
any cities they go, and get permissions to move to another area.

Has anyone had experiences in avoiding registration, and what were the
outcomes? I heard the police officers of small villages they do not
know what to do with foreigners which have no registrations.
What was your experience?

Also, how much approximatelly cost getting a permission to travel to
another city, and then do you have to pay fees for registering?

Augustas
http://www.tetsi.com -- free website template for an internet page of
your travels and travel pictures!
http://www.kligys.com/en

On Thu, 12 Feb 2004 17:57:42 -0800, Augustas Kligys wrote:

I have heard that foreigners travelling in Sudan have to register in any
cities they go, and get permissions to move to another area.

Has anyone had experiences in avoiding registration, and what were the
outcomes? I heard the police officers of small villages they do not know
what to do with foreigners which have no registrations. What was your
experience?

I have no experience from Sudan but I was in Algeria three years ago and
there were strict controls of foreign traffic in the south. It
may be a valuable reference although the differences may be as numerous
as the similarities. Checkpoints on entry and exit from every town,
mandatory registration in each town, mandatory escorted convoy on certain
stretches of road only operating on specific days. Security forces were
friendly and professional, and generally rather bored and eager for a
chat. No fees, absolutely never even the remotest hint of a bribe request,
just stamps on the passport. I do not know what the attitude of the
Sudanese government is, but the Algerians were mostly trying to avoid
tourists getting killed stupidly. There was a civil war going in the north
and the police and military really were serious about making sure that no
foreigner strayed where he was not supposed to. So the controls were
strict but the intent was mostly friendly. In that case, there was no
worry : as long as you played by the rules everything is fine. There would
have been a serious problem if the intent of the government had not been
to protect the travelers but to harass them in order to prevent access to
some areas while not appearing to close them off to nosy foreigners
altogether. Considering recent and not so recent events in the south an in
the east of Sudan, I would not trust the Sudanese government to have a
friendly intent toward foreigners. You should really try to get a clear
picture of the what the regulations are really for: that unofficial bit of
information matters much more than the regulations themselves to give you
an idea of the level of harassment you should expect.

To give you an idea of what actual enforcement is like, I once arrived in
a El Golea in the evening and decided to register the following day at the
police station because it was a sunday, night was falling and I really
wanted to find somewhere to sleep before nightfall. The cheap options
mentioned in the Lonely Planet had closed years ago, but a local I met by
chance arranged his cousin to open in a youth hostel normally only
frequented by locals, and I spent the night there. The officials were
****ed and assigned me to an hotel for the following couple of night until
the next convoy, with a friendly bored policeman staying in the next room.
One day I tried to sneak past a checkpoint in a local bush taxi to leave
the town among a bunch of locals, but the taxi was searched and I was
spotted and subsequently escorted back to town by the military. There was
a civil war going in the north and the police and the military really were
serious about making sure that no foreigner strayed where he was not
supposed to. On the other hand, one morning in Ain Salah with a couple of
nice Germans who picked me up in their Toyota, we decided we did not want
to wait three days for the next convoy to Tam. We went to the local
commander lamenting over our fate after much salutations and a friendly
chat, and he gave us an authorization to drive the stretch on our own. We
were quite surprised to see our request granted !

Bottom line : a restrictively protective security force will give you a
gentle tongue lashing when you probe the limits of their control, and
there is still a degree of flexibility available to bend the rules if you
manage to establish good relationships with the officials. But all that
may not be the case in a state where the security forces have a different
and much less friendly attitude toward foreigners.

Have a safe trip in Sudan, I envy you ! I hope the civil war will end one
day: the remoteness of places such as Darfur and the Nuba mountains is
extremely attractive, but apparently still too dangerous at the moment.

On 12 Feb 2004 17:57:42 -0800, (Augustas Kligys)
wrote:

Hello,

I have heard that foreigners travelling in Sudan have to register in
any cities they go, and get permissions to move to another area.

Has anyone had experiences in avoiding registration, and what were the
outcomes? I heard the police officers of small villages they do not
know what to do with foreigners which have no registrations.
What was your experience?

Also, how much approximatelly cost getting a permission to travel to
another city, and then do you have to pay fees for registering?

Augustas
http://www.tetsi.com -- free website template for an internet page of
your travels and travel pictures!
http://www.kligys.com/en

I have forgotten what the fees were, but they aren't much. You don't
have to register everywhere, you just have to do it once within (I
think) 3 days of arriving in the country. You'll have two sets of
forms to fill out - one set for general registration of your presence
as a foreigner in the country, and one set of travel registration
documents that list roughly where you'll be travelling. (If you don't
have any firm plans about areas you'd like to see, just list all
possible areas so that you've covered all the bases.) If you want to
take photos you'll need to register for that also. You'll need photos
for all these documents, so get lots taken in a photo booth where you
live before you leave on your trip.

The process is simple, and it's really not worth trying to get around
it - there are police checkpoints set up along most of the roads, and
you'll be asked to present your travel documents at these checkpoints.
(Don't ever hand over the originals or you might not get them back -
make photocopies and hand those over instead.)

This all sounds quite complicated but it's really not - and in my
opinion it will be far better for you to just get the registrations
you need than to risk getting in trouble with the authorities, since
the probability is that you *will* get caught.
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On Thu, 12 Feb 2004 17:57:42 -0800, Augustas Kligys wrote:

Has anyone had experiences in avoiding registration, and what were the
outcomes? I heard the police officers of small villages they do not
know what to do with foreigners which have no registrations.
What was your experience?


Hello there,

Once in El-Khartoum, you have 3 days if you're going with the plane, and
about one week if you're entering with the ferry through Halfa, to
*register*.
The registration, IMO, is a legalized way to steeling from you by the
Sudanese gov. You go there & tell them "Hi, I'm here", then you have to
pay 20$ and then, you're registered. Just like that. Of course, IMO, to
cover up that pure robbery, they will have to ask you to do some paper
work and fill in some applications and provide a couple of photos and
the like. However, I've been told that if I didn't do it - something
which I was considering - I might go in trouble in the way out. (they
stamp your passport with that registration). But I think you just pay a
fine of (20$)!! on the way out. However, it would be better if you do it
I think. Also, you will have to pay another 20$ on the way out as
another "We're steeling from you" Sudanese *fee*, they call that one
some "Existing fee" (!) You're never informed by the Sudanese gov. that
you have to do and pay any of that. I tried to use this fact when I was
leaving at the airport. Also I knew that I had to pay this bloody 20$,
but I just thought they might let me go if I just say: "I didn't know,
no one informed me, I don't have any money left". The response was:
"Son, If you want to get on that plane, you'll have to pay the money" -
End of story. Of course I could have yelled some more. But I wasn't sure
where that could lead to.

theoretically speaking, you need permissions to do anything in Sudan.
But by Experience, as long as you're away from the south, you could
safely do what ever you want.

Best,
--
Maysara