The government of South Sudan has denied that only Tanzanians and Egyptians are allowed visa-free entry after a government immigration services website recently listed the two nations as the only visa-exempt countries globally.

"The Ministry of Interior unequivocally dismisses these claims as false, misleading, and without any official legal or administrative basis," South Sudan said in a statement on Monday, although the eligibility list had been published on the government website (https://www.evisa.gov.ss/eligibility) before being cleared on Monday.

South Sudan's interior ministry said it had not issued "any directive, policy decision, or statutory instrument" introducing changes to the country's immigration or visa regime.

It added that it had not "promulgated any increasing or restricting visa-free entry exclusively to the nationals of Egypt and Tanzania" and that it had not approved the visa fee schedule, which was being reported.

'Exempted'

According to the now-dismissed visa eligibility list, travellers from all other African countries, except six, had been expected to pay $100 for a single-entry visa, $200 for a three-month multiple-entry visa, and $350 for a six-month multiple-entry visa.

The now-rejected schedule had indicated that citizens of Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Central African Republic, Rwanda, Sudan, and Kenya were required to pay $50 for a single-entry South Sudanese visa, $125 for a three-month multiple-entry visa, and $250 for a six-month multiple-entry visa.

Travellers from Tanzania and Egypt were not required to pay for visas, as their status on the visa eligibility website was listed as "exempted."

The visa fee guidelines had been published on South Sudan's Department of E-Visa and Immigration Services website.

The visa fees were largely uniform across the 207 countries listed in the eligibility schedule.