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Immigration suspends travel to Denmark over passport claims

While holders of paper-based e-passports should not be concerned because they are still valid and can be used alongside polycarbonate e-passports, new applicants will be issued upgraded e-passports.

What you need to know:

  • Mr Mundeyi explained that the government had fulfilled all the standards required by International Civil Aviation and Organizations (ICAO), and Ugandan passports have not been rejected anywhere.

Ugandans traveling to Denmark with the new polycarbonate e-passport will have to wait or cancel their flights as they wait for Denmark to verify their passports.

The Ministry of Internal Affairs confirmed to this publication that Ugandans traveling to Denmark will have to be patient for two weeks as they wait for the approval from the latter.

This follows reports from some Ugandans who had been blocked from proceeding with the visa application process to Denmark.  

Mr Simon Mundeyi, the spokesperson of Internal Affairs Ministry, said there have been claims since last week from students whose visa applications have been delayed and attributed delays to Danish government which is still in the process of verifying saying that “Danish government which had not taken time to verify and certify our passport in time.”

“Ugandans traveling to Denmark will have to be patient for two weeks as we finalise with the Danish authorities. Even those who had applied for visas at the Danish Embassy will have to wait for authorization from Denmark,” Mr Mundeyi said in an interview with this publication on Tuesday.

Mr Mundeyi said those who had managed to travel to Denmark with polycarbonate passports without any issues are at liberty to return to the country, noting that it is those traveling out of Uganda that have to wait.

In March, Uganda introduced polycarbonate e-passports which were introduced to ease travelers' experience, improve document verification and enhance travel security for citizens. 

Mr Mundeyi explained that the government had fulfilled all the standards required by International Civil Aviation and Organizations (ICAO), and Ugandan passports have not been rejected anywhere.

“We wrote to ICAO and we got certification and approval to upgrade the passport in line with the international passport and were also required to print sample passports to be distributed to all countries globally,” he said.

Reports from the Directorate of Citizenship and Immigration Control (DCIC) indicate that over 7,000 people had travelled abroad using the new polycarbonate passport. Out of these, 98 had managed to travel Denmark.

“At the airport when we checked our records on Friday. About 98 have actually used the passports to go Denmark and the Danish government rejected one of the visa applicants on account of having not verified the passport,” he said.

However, it should be noted that the similar issue happened in 2018 when the government phased out the machine- readable passport to the electronic one. Mr Mundeyi said that the Danish government is always careful when verifying passports.

“The issue is with the Danish government which takes its time to verify and they are not like other quick countries such USA and Canada,” he said.

By press time, efforts to reach the Danish Embassy for a comment were futile as several emails and calls to the Public Relations Office were not responded to.