What the Embassy cannot do

What the Embassy cannot do:

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  • Help you enter a country, for example, if you do not have a visa or your passport is not valid; because each country can decide who they allow into their country.
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  • Ensure your safety and security in another country; because such issues are the responsibility of the
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  • government and authorities of that country.
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  • Give you legal advice or translate documents, although we can give you details of people who may be able to help you in these cases.
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  • Carry out searches for missing people; because doing so is the responsibility of the local authorities.
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  • Investigate crimes, get you out of prison, prevent the local authorities from deporting you after your prison sentence, or interfere in criminal or civil court proceedings;
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  • Get you better treatment in prison than local prisoners or get you better treatment in hospital than the treatment that is given to local people;
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  • Pay any bills or give you money from public funds; because we are not funded to do this and it is the
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  • obligation of individuals to take responsibility for themselves.
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  • Make travel arrangements for you, or find you work or accommodation, or make business arrangements on your behalf; because they are private arrangements which are your responsibility to make for yourself.
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  • Get involved in private disputes over property, employment, commercial or other matters;
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Financial help

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  • If you run out of money abroad, we can give you information on how to transfer money and we can help you to contact relatives and friends who may be willing to transfer money to you or to buy you a ticket back to Uganda.
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  • We cannot provide money to family or friends, for example if you have had to go into hospital, to help with their travel or accommodation if they visit you.
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  • We are not funded to provide emergency financial assistance. It is important that you have full travel insurance as we cannot pay your bills. If you don’t have travel insurance, you will be liable for any costs you are charged
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Deaths abroad from natural causes

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  • If the person who died was travelling with a tour company, the company will often contact you, as the next of kin, themselves. If the death of a Ugandan national abroad is reported to us, and you are not present, we will ask the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to tell you as soon as possible. We will do everything we can to make sure that, as next of kin, you do not hear about the death first from the media, although we cannot always influence this.
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  • If you want us to, we can tell you the cost of local burial and local cremation (where local authorities allow these for foreigners) or of transporting the body and personal belongings back to Uganda (known as ‘repatriation’). You should be aware that, in some countries, a lack of suitable storage may make it impossible to get the necessary international certificates to transport the body.
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  • While we cannot pay any burial, cremation or repatriation expenses ourselves or settle any debts, we can help transfer money from friends and relatives in Uganda to pay any necessary costs. If you want us to, we can provide lists of local and international funeral directors.
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Ugandan nationals in detention or prison overseas

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  • If a relative or friend has been detained or held in prison overseas, we can give the following support.
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  • If your relative or friend has asked us to, we will tell you as soon as we can that they have been detained or held in prison. However, to protect their privacy, we will not normally provide any details of the detention or arrest, or tell you how to contact them, unless they have given us permission.
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  • We can provide general information about the country involved, prison conditions and the local legal processes.
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  • If the prison where your friend or relative is being detained agrees, we can, within certain limits, pass on any money you want to send to them to buy prison ‘comforts’, use the phone and so on. In some cases, there may be a charge for this service.
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  • You should be aware that, in many countries, mail the prisoner sends or receives will be opened and read by the authorities, and phone conversations may be monitored.
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