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JUBA - 23 Jul 2013

Mobile phone coverage to be extended to Yida Camp

Zain Group has announced that it will extend mobile telecommunications coverage to the Yida refugee camp in northern Unity State. The company will also make available free calling for refugees at designated calling booths. 

The company is cooperating with the charity arm of Vodafone Group to make available the service in the remote border area, where about 70,000 refugees from the Nuba Mountains are living.

The foundation will train Zain engineers, provide free services to the UN Refugee Agency, and also set up the free calling booths for refugees.

To date, mobile phone coverage at Yida has been limited to spotty signals from the nearest Zain tower at Pariang. Under favorable atmospheric conditions the refugees could sometimes make calls by night.

Wassim Mansour, CEO of Zain South Sudan, stated, "Through our cooperation with the Vodafone Foundation Instant Network in providing connectivity, we are delighted and fully committed to support the UNHCR's life saving efforts to bring relief and enhance the living conditions of the refugees in the Yida camp."

According to Andrew Dunnett, a director at Vodafone Group, the foundation also intends “to use Vodafone's technology to provide many thousands of children living in refugee camps far from home with access to educational programmes which cannot be delivered through any other means.”