The Sudanese Council of Ministers passed a bill amending the Sudanese Nationality Act on Sunday.

Under the chairmanship of First Vice-President and Prime Minister, Lt. Gen. Bakri Hasan Saleh, the Ministers approved the amendments for 2018.

Under the new amendments, citizens with a Sudanese mother and a South Sudanese father, have the right to enjoy Sudanese citizenship, as do Sudanese having other nationalities.

Interior Minister Hamid Manan submitted the amendments to the year 2018 in order to remove the contradictions between the country’s Nationality Law and the Constitution, under which people with a Sudanese parent are entitled to obtain the Sudanese nationality.

The 2005 Interim Constitution of Sudan stipulates that every child of a Sudanese mother has the right to enjoy the Sudanese nationality. 

Secession

On July 9, 2011, the southern part of Sudan seceded from Sudan, by which the newly created South Sudan became the world’s youngest nation.

A few days before, Sudan’s Council of Ministers had passed a bill that amended the Sudanese Nationality Act of 2011, and by which South Sudanese would lose Sudanese citizenship, even in case one of their parents was a Sudanese national.

Six years later however, the Sudanese Supreme Court ruled that the Sudanese nationality, withdrawn after the secession of South Sudan, had to be restored to South Sudanese citizen Adel Bur'i Ramadan. 

Ramadan had opened a case against the loss of his sudanese nationality and gained support from South Sudanese who encountered similar problems.

In August 2017, Sudan’s Constitutional Court granted Sudanese citizenship to children born of Sudanese and South Sudanese parents.