South Sudan Humanitarian Crisis

• Approximately 67% of South Sudan’s population lives at the international poverty line and the World Bank says, “GDP per-capita growth suggest that extreme poverty will likely continue to increase, reaching 73% of the population by 2024.”
• South Sudan is among the most food-insecure countries globally. The Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) projects up to 70% of the population will require food aid in the lean season from July to September.
• Since the outbreak of fighting in Sudan on April 15, 2023, there’s been an influx of people fleeing the country with more than 720,000 people having crossed into South Sudan from Sudan due to the conflict as of June 30, 2024.
• As of Jan. 31, 2024, 2,269,893 South Sudanese refugees were hosted in neighboring countries, with Uganda hosting 41.8% (948,145).

South Sudan remains one of the least peaceful countries in the world, according to the 2023 Global Peace Index. South Sudan experienced a 1% deterioration of its overall score in the 2023 report, owing to deteriorations in the “ongoing conflict” and “militarization” domains.

South Sudan’s latest peace agreement, the Revitalized Agreement on the Resolution of Conflict in South Sudan (R-ARCSS), was signed in 2018. The agreement led to a fragile truce and resulted in the formation of the Transitional Government of National Unity in February 2020.

It is widely expected that the first general national elections will be held in South Sudan in December 2024, followed by the conclusion of the transitional arrangements set out and agreed to in the R-ARCSS.

In September 2022, a UN human rights team said incidents of rape had become so common in South Sudan that many women no longer report repeated sexual attacks. Rape victims lack access to medical and trauma care.

Community leaders and other individuals involved in peacebuilding work in South Sudan were interviewed by The New Humanitarian and called for long-term initiatives that build positive ties between communities that have been divided by a civil war that cleaved groups along ethnic lines.

South Sudan continues to be one of the most dangerous places for aid workers. On Nov. 6, 2023, a South Sudanese national aid worker was killed while on a field trip to respond to a suspected measles outbreak in the Greater Pibor Administrative Area.

In January 2024, 52 people, including women and children, were killed in the Abyei region, a disputed region between Sudan and South Sudan.

Exacerbating the humanitarian situation in South Sudan is the fighting that erupted in neighboring Sudan in mid-April between the Sudanese Armed Forces and Rapid Support Forces. As of June 20, 2024, more than 720,000 people had crossed into South Sudan from Sudan due to the conflict, with over 560,000 being South Sudanese.

Consecutive years of record-breaking rains and floods covered two-thirds of the country as of late 2022 and left people without food or land to cultivate. The devastating flooding damaged shelters and schools, destroyed crops and household goods, reduced access to safe water and hindered humanitarian access.

The recovery process from these floods will take years. Dr. Liz Stephens, professor in climate risks and resilience at the University of Reading, said, “It will certainly take years for the floods from 2021 to recede, because the land is disconnected from the main river, so floodwaters have to evaporate rather than drain away.” 

December to February are typically the driest months for South Sudan when the rivers subside and the Sudd wetlands air out. For more details on South Sudan’s seasonality, refer to the image below.

The effects of the flooding are severe and broad. In 2021, the flooding destroyed 161,055 acres (65,177 hectares) of agricultural land and killed 795,558 livestock. In 2022, flooding affected over 900,000 people, displacing 140,000 people across 29 counties.  

Another major flood event is likely to occur during the second half of 2024, threatening to worsen an already severe humanitarian crisis. In their food security outlook released in June 2024, FEWS NET said they are projecting a risk of Famine (IPC Phase 5) in South Sudan from June onward, “particularly in north-central Unity and other low-lying and flood-prone counties in the Sudd wetland area and river basins.” 

Critical drivers of displacement in South Sudan are conflict, persistent poverty, food insecurity and flooding. As of the end of December 2023, there were two million IDPs in South Sudan, and more than 2.27 million South Sudanese are refugees in neighboring countries as of June 30, 2024.

Of the five neighboring countries hosting South Sudanese refugees, Uganda hosts the most at nearly 42%. Most refugees are situated in remote and economically underserved areas. Host communities are often in an unstable socioeconomic situation themselves, and new refugees’ arrival could further exacerbate hardship.

Many displaced people have been forced to relocate multiple times to seek better living conditions or flee violence, particularly as those South Sudanese who fled northward into Sudan have again been displaced by violence and conflict there. Women, girls and people with disabilities are at risk of sexual violence, both inside displacement sites and when collecting fuel or food in surrounding areas.

A macroeconomic crisis, linked to a decade of conflict, is a driver of South Sudan’s humanitarian crisis and contributes to displacement. The 2023 Global Report on Food Crises highlighted other drivers of the crisis, including very high staple food prices that are a result of insufficient domestic food supplies; low foreign currency reserves and the weak national currency; high fuel prices; and reduced imports from neighboring Uganda. These factors result in limited access to livelihoods, lack of agricultural opportunities and continued insecurity, which forces people to flee their homes in search of safety and food assistance.

According to South Sudan’s 2023 Regional Refugee Response Plan (RRRP), “Some of the vulnerabilities and risk stem from exposure to endemic violence and the impact of climate chocks in the country of origin and others are magnified by prolonged displacement in situations where the needs outstrip the available resources for assistance, compounded by environments not conducive to self-reliance.”

The refugee crisis is a children’s crisis; children between the ages of 0-17 make up over 50% of the population, according to the 2023 RRRP. Refugee children face particular risks, including child labor, abduction and exposure to being trafficked.

South Sudan remains among the most food-insecure countries globally. FEWS NET projects that 8-9 million people, or 65-70% of the population, will require food aid at the peak of the lean season (July-September).

The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) is a common scale for classifying the severity and magnitude of food insecurity and acute malnutrition. The scale includes five phases, with Phase 1 meaning there is no or minimal acute food insecurity and Phase 5 meaning famine has been reached.

In their food security outlook released in June 2024, FEWS NET said, “Years of conflict and flooding have decimated livelihoods and eroded coping capacity, and multiple shocks are converging as the lean season approaches, including an ongoing economic crisis, high returnee burden, anticipated violence in advance of planned elections in December, and severe flooding projected to be worse than the 2020 and 2022 floods in extent and livelihoods impact.” 

Emergency (IPC Phase 4) outcomes are expected to expand to 41 counties in June to September 2024 with some households in Catastrophe (IPC Phase 5). 

South Sudan’s poor health indicators are due to limited access to health services, a shortage of health workforce and inadequate health infrastructure.  

Most of the neglected tropical diseases in South Sudan are endemic, posing a serious health threat. A hepatitis E outbreak was reported in the Abyei Administrative Area, and measles cases continue in other parts of the country as of June 2024.

South Sudan’s Ministry of Health (MoH) declared a Yellow Fever outbreak in Yambio County, Western Equatoria State. On Dec. 7, 2023, the MoH confirmed an imported case of cholera in the Renk Transit Center following an active outbreak in Sudan.

Across much of the country, the ongoing public health crisis characterized by rising acute malnutrition and endemic acute food insecurity means communities are highly vulnerable to further flooding.