Can you get through the Sudan these days?
 

Hi - Is it possible to travel through the Sudan from the east, and into Chad? We plan to travel Cape Town to London, including the NW Africa, and am struggling to wok out where to cross from east to west. Thanks.

Read an interesting account recently of a guy who is driving his landrover round the world. He crossed from Kenya into Uganda, drove along roughly where the border would be between Southern Sudan and the congo and then into CAR and on to Chad. Looked pretty full on, at least one section supposedly wasn't even a track, just a jungle trail and gets pretty close to some dodgy areas including where the LRA are operating in northern Uganda / southern Sudan. Could be an option through. Not sure on whether the western sudan has opened up yet.

Hello - I'm the author of the Bradt guide to Sudan. Forget any chance of crossing west Sudan any time soon. Not only is Darfur still incredibly dangerous, with both sides essentially waging war not just against each other, but also any civilians and NGO workers in their way, there has also been a lot of sabre-rattling recently between Sudan and Chad, to the extent of skirmishes between troops on both sides of the borders and threats of full blown conflict. Lots of good news sources to keep up to date with, including IRIN News and Sudan Tribune (Google these).

The South is potentially a lot more interesting, given the opening of the Sudan-Uganda border and the rehabilitation of the road from Juba to the Kenya border and Lokichoggio. From here, it should be possible to continue west and into CAR. But roads are poor to non-existent, and you can forget about this duting the rainy season. The Sudan section of www.unjlc.org has lots of interesting stuff about transport infrastructure in the south.

In 2001 I travelled the opposite way, from Zemio in the extreme east of the CAR and out into Arua, N Uganda. Did it in a landrover. We took a road that more or less followed the S Sudan border (though it did dip into the the Congo a fair bit too - Ango, Doruma etc where the town names). Road v overgrown and bridges in v poor shape (inching across on bare logs mostly) but it was dry season so passable at a squeeze. Also quite an isolated area, so not too many rebels knocking about (at the time anyway). Could be worth checking out. Kampala is where you'd find out if its still feasible. Try the Aussie owner of the backpackers (i think its called just that).

The border-area between Sudan and Congo/Uganda seems to be quite tense at the moment. I met some Germans that traveled from CAR to Uganda in november. Many villages they passed were recently attacked by LRA (Lord's Resistance Army).

My question: Is it possible to travel overland from Juba to Wau, or from Dilling to Wau?

Greetings,
Gerbert

I am very interested in which of the mid africa east-west crossings may be workable at the moment.

I understand the raining season in southern sudan/CAR can last for up to six months of the year from May-October. What time of the year did you make the Zimio-Aura trip mrtom? Did you carry fuel for the whole trip?

Can anyone comment on the current situation on the Bukavu-Kisangani road throgh DRC? I know there is still a lot of fighting going on in North eastern DRC but a lot of the news reports put the action north of the this route. Does anyone have recent experiences in the area?

Hi Toby2 - wouldn't mind reading about that guy who drove his Land Rover through Congo/CAR etc. Where did you read it? Cheers

replying to Phil, it was about this time of year. Took all fuel with us from Cameroon, filling up in CAR until somewhere not too far from Bangui, after which the fuel stopped (no fuel coming up river at the time). I think we had around 250 litres of diesel with us at one point!

Re Adventuriseddotcom's post. Think I read it in one of the LR magazines in the last couple of months. Might have read it on the internet. From what I remember, the guy is 30s, ex army, driving a customised 110 fitted out I think by Frogs Island. Fairly distinguishable by the double rear wheel carrier, side by side like safari landrovers. Remember reading about exped when it started going down through the Americas but recently read this other article where he had crossed from Uganda looping along the congo / southern sudan border. At least one section was just following bush paths because there was no vehicle tracks. Looked quite cool. He is doing the trip with a load of different people, eg people coming out and joining him for stages. Thats about as much as I can remember. I'll have another look see if I can track down the website.