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IND deciding again on asylum applications from Sudan

Last update: 27 June 2024

The Immigration and Naturalisation Service (in Dutch: Immigratie- en Naturalisatiedienst, or IND) is going to decide again on applications by people from Sudan. Because of the persistently uncertain situation in Sudan, the IND has temporarily not processed these applications since 8 July 2023. Adoption of the country policy for Sudan has now given the IND a policy-related basis for taking asylum decisions. 

Outgoing State Secretary Van der Burg wrote this today in a Letter to the Dutch House of Representatives (in Dutch: Kamerbrief). 

Random violence in several regions

The new country policy for Sudan is based on the recent country report by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (in Dutch: ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken, or BZ). In this report serious and current developments are outlined in the country where an armed conflict has been going on since April 2023. In several regions this conflict is resulting in a risk of random violence, i.e. the situation as referred to in Article 15c of the EU Qualification Directive (QD), the so-called Article 15c situation. 

It holds for the regions Khartoum, North, South and Central Darfur, Kordofan and El Gezira that there is the highest risk of serious injury and/or damage due to random violence. In the West Darfur region personal circumstances and the specific situation can lead to a realistic risk of serious injury and/or damage. Regarding the other regions, it is assumed that there is insufficient occurrence of an exceptional situation with a risk of random violence. 

Violence targeting various groups

Besides random violence, the battling parties are also committing targeted violence. This is systematically aimed at the Masalit, an African population group mainly from Darfur. 
There is also targeted violence towards other African population groups, political opponents, human rights activists, journalists, LGBTIQ+ persons, women and girls and members of Emergency Response Rooms. For these so-called risk profiles, the IND takes the extra risk that these people run of becoming a victim of violence into account in its individual assessment. 

Processing of asylum applications in the normal process

During the period in which the IND did not decide on asylum applications from Sudanese, 880 first asylum applications were submitted by persons with a Sudanese nationality. This relates to the months of July 2023 to May 2024 inclusive. From now on the outstanding applications by Sudanese will be dealt with according to the normal working method in the general asylum process.