The weekend-long decision by the Trump administration to cancel visas for all South Sudan passport holders has been added to the political and humanitarian challenges of the country on the brink of the Civil War, officials and observers said Monday.
Tensions between the two South Sudan political leaders have escalated in recent weeks, particularly after authorities placed the vice president under house arrest in late March. As violence intensifies and the US cuts aid, millions of people are facing hunger, displacement and illness.
Observers say the ban on visas being wiped out indicates how Washington is retreating from South Sudan, the country the US held nearly 15 years ago.
“As a massive storm has been formed over South Sudan, the ban on visas only adds to the anxiety about everything people may be wrong,” said Daniel Akech, a senior South Sudan analyst at the nonprofit International Crisis Group.
On Saturday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said it had cancelled visas for South Sudanian citizens, preventing them from entering the United States. Secretary of State Christopher Landau said on social media that South Sudan refused to accept the repatriation of its people.
The Trump administration has not said whether it will attempt to deport South Sudanian citizens whose visas have been revoked. Government spokesman did not respond to requests for comment as the South Sudan government has not responded to announcing a visa ban.
South Sudan sends relatively few tourists to the United States. According to US government data, 46 non-immigrant visas were issued to citizens in January, comparing more than 2,500 people in neighboring Kenyan.
The cancellation of the visa comes amid deepening the political rift between President Salva Kir and his vice president, Riek Machar. The division threatens a fragile 2018 peace agreement that will end a five-year civil war that killed nearly 400,000 people and drove millions away.
In recent months, Sudanese and opposition forces, allied with Machar, have clashed outside Juba in the capital and other parts of the country. In March, non-helicopters evacuating wounded soldiers from the Northeast Upper Nile Province were attacked, resulting in the deaths of a general, several military officers and crew. According to the United Nations, the state's violence has uprooted tens of thousands of people, some of whom fled to Ethiopia.
The Ugandan government deployed troops in South Sudan at the request of President Kiel. This is a move that infuriated Mr Machar and his allies. Regional diplomatic efforts to quell discord have failed to date, increasing fear of the possibility of government collapse.
US aid cuts also hurt efforts to rebuild after years of conflict. The US spent $705 million last year on domestic food, health, education and other programs. But much of that funding has disappeared since the Trump administration came to power, and aid groups forced them to scale back programs to deal with floods, cholera outbreaks and food shortages.
“South Sudan is quickly becoming a forgotten crisis in the world,” Danish Ogenwat, advocate lead for aid agencies' actions against hunger, said in a call from Juba.
International Crisis Group Ekechi said a sudden visa cancellation could disrupt the lives of South Sudanians in the US.
Many of those people are students or individuals who work to support families in their hometowns or in refugee camps, Akech said. They also include rising stars like Khaman Maluach, a basketball player who represented South Sudan at last year's Olympics and just finished his freshman season as a Duke University centre.
Akech said visa revocations should target those responsible for worsening the situation in South Sudan, rather than the wider population. “Pain is felt by people who should not be punished,” he said.
opposition officials in South Sudan in the US said on Monday they were worried about people who could be deported.
“We are concerned that individuals who are repatriated may face serious harm and death at the hands of governments responsible for these failures,” Reath Muoch Tang, a senior Washington-based official of Machar's party, a legal permanent resident of the United States, said in a statement in the New York Times.
Future US actions should “focus on promoting accountability among leaders while protecting the lives and interests of ordinary South Sudanians,” he said.
