Gogrial West County, Warrap State
Demographics
2008 NBS Census population: 243,921
2021 NBS PES population estimate*: 582,379
2022 UN OCHA population estimate*: 326,541
2024 UN OCHA population estimate*: 582,379
2024 IPC population estimate: 336,337
2025 UN OCHA population estimate*: 347,953
Ethnic groups: Rek Dinka (Aguok: Agurpiny, Ajak, Atutkuel, Buothanyith, Marial, Monydit, Ngokabayen, Ngokayaric, Ngokkuec, Pakalagep, Pakallol, and Wuny), Rek Dinka (Kuac), Rek Dinka (Awan: Awan-Chan, Awan-Mou)
Displacement Figures as of September 2024: 17,508 IDPs (+6,300 Sept. 2023) and 146,375 returnees (+26,356 Sept. 2023)
IPC Food Security: November 2024 – Crisis (Phase 3); IPC Projections: December 2024 to March 2025 – Crisis (Phase 3); April to July 2025 – Emergency (Phase 4)
Economy & Livelihoods
Gogrial West County is located in Warrap State. It borders Twic County to the north and Gogrial East County to the east. It also borders Western Bahr el-Ghazal State (Jur River County) to the south and Northern Bahr el-Ghazal State (Aweil South and Aweil East Counties) to the west.
The county falls under the western floodplain sorghum and cattle livelihoods zone (FEWSNET 2018). Gogrial West is primarily constituted of flat grasslands. High water table and swamps areas in the county are good for raising livestock but can make access difficult, particularly in the rainy season. Two rivers cross through Gogrial West: River Jur flows north through the county before turning east, and the River Lol flows across the northern part of Gogrial West.
The majority of communities in Gogrial West are agro-pastoralist, engaged in animal husbandry (37%), subsistence farming (37%), and fishing (22%) (IOM 2013). A more recent report from FAO and WFP (2018) estimates that 80% of households engage in agriculture, a figure which remained the same in 2021. Planting is conducted during the rainy season and the main crops are maize, sorghum, sesame, groundnuts, vegetables and millet. In 2021, gross cereal yields were estimated to be 0.96 tonnes per hectare (FAO/WFP 2022), increasing to 1 tonne per hectare in 2022 (FAO/WFP 2023).
Pastoralists throughout the state migrate during the dry season, in search of water in various parts of the northeastern and eastern Warrap State. While Gogrial West is not as affected by water and migration disputes as its northern and eastern neighbours, periodic fighting between the Aguok, Kuach and Apuk sections in Gogrial East has disrupted livelihoods in the past. The Aguok have no significant toic (seasonally flooded grassland) and therefore have long sought access to the toic in Gogrial East for grazing. Whilst the Kuac have access to a smaller toic to the south, they often prefer the toic of Gogrial East due to the quality of the grass and the lack of disease.
Kuajok is the main market for both the county and Warrap State, however in recent years inflation has caused goods in the market to become unaffordable for many residents. Proximity to the Sudanese border presents opportunities to access supplies from Abyei; however, regular insecurity and displacement have frequently obstructed commercial progress. Supplies from Rumbek and Juba are also vulnerable to internal conflict, seasonal flooding, and poor road conditions. All three challenges have limited market access and imperilled food security in recent years.
In November 2024, the IPC projected Gogrial West County as being at an crisis (IPC level 3) level of food insecurity, with conditions projected to persist at the same level through March 2025 before deteriorating to emergency (IPC level 4) levels, where they have been projected to remain until at least July 2025.A 2020 REACH Assessment found residents in 33% of assessed settlements in Gogrial West were coping with a lack of food by consuming wild foods that are known to make people sick and residents in 76% of assessed shelters classified the hunger they were experiencing as severe or the worst it can be. Residents in 97% of assessed settlements were selling livestock to cope with the lack of food, though this declined to 22% by 2022 (REACH 2022).
In 2021 Gogrial West was identified as a flood-affected county by the Emergency Response Coordination Centre. The flooding in the Gogrial West County started early June 2021 in Akon South Payam, and the entirety of Warrap was inundated with heavy rainfalls until mid-September 2021. Homes were destroyed, high caseloads of malaria and diarrheal diseases were recorded, and livestock disease outbreaks were reported.
Infrastructure & Services
Gogrial West hosts Warrap State’s capital, Kuajok, and the county headquarters is in Gogrial Town. Many primary healthcare units were damaged in 2017 due to insecurity, which has weakened the local healthcare infrastructure. Water sources are limited in the county, and are often shared with livestock, potentially contributing to the spread of disease (REACH 2019a; REACH 2019b).
Gogrial West is home to seventeen (17) Early Childhood Development centres, two hundred and ninety-nine (299) primary schools, and twenty-five (25) secondary schools located throughout the county. Twic County has among the largest number of primary schools in the country, though still well behind Juba County’s 570.
In December 2024, the WHO reported that Gogrial West County had thirty-seven (37) health facilities, of which thirty-one (31) were functional. These functional facilities included twenty-three (23) primary health care units (PHCUs), seven (7) primary health care centres (PHCCs), and one (1) hospital. This means there were approximately 0.99 PHCUs per 15,000 people and 1.01 PHCCs per 50,000 people in the county at that time.
According to OCHA’s 2025 Humanitarian Needs Overview, there are an estimated 210,828 people in need in Gogrial West County, which represents approximately 61% of the county’s total population reported by OCHA for 2025. For comparison, in 2024, OCHA reported that there were an estimated 324,980 people in need in Gogrial West County, of whom 299,665 were non-displaced people, with the remainder comprising IDPs and returnees. OCHA’s Humanitarian Needs Overview for 2023 estimated that over 220,600 people had humanitarian needs in Gogrial West (up significantly from 190,800 in 2021), placing considerable pressure on local infrastructure and services. This figure represented over 67% of the estimated population for the county reported in the HNO in that year. In 2020, the county was identified as one of fourteen counties in South Sudan with the highest level (“extreme”) of GBV needs.
Conflict Dynamics
Greater Gogrial was historically regarded as a particularly isolated area of Greater Bahr el-Ghazal, and was belatedly and awkwardly integrated into British colonial administration (Cormack 2014). Despite this historical perception and the geographical remoteness of Gogrial, elites from Gogrial – alongside their counterparts from the comparatively accessible Greater Tonj area – have come to play a profound role in South Sudanese politics, including President Salva Kiir (who is from Akon in Gogrial West). During the first Sudanese civil war (1955-1972), an under-reported massacre was committed by Sudanese police forces at Lol Nyiel near Gogrial town in 1964, with both torture and improper treatment of dead bodies alleged to have occurred (Cormack 2017). Gogrial was particularly affected during the second Sudanese civil war (1983-2005), initially through raiding by government-aligned Sudanese Misseriya militias. As the war progressed, multiple rounds of fighting between the SPLM/A and Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) created conditions for famine in the late 1980s and in 1998, with intra-SPLM/A factional disputes surrounding the relationship between Dr John Garang and Kerubino Kuanyin Bol having an acute effect on physical and food security in the area during the late 1990s. The SPLM/A briefly seized Gogrial in 2000, though the town was recaptured by the SAF in 2002 and remained in government hands until 2005 (Cormack 2014; Madut-Arop 2006). During the 1990s, the Mayen Rual common market contributed to harmonious relations between the Apuk, Kuac, and Aguok sections of the Rek Dinka, though the market has declined since the end of the war in 2005 (Pendle and Madut Anei 2018). Since this time, two rounds of serious internal conflict among Dinka sections have affected the area (in 2007-2008 and 2015-2017), whilst cross-border violence with parts of the Nuer community of Unity State (particularly from Mayom County) have resulted in several phases of lethal cattle raiding.
Although Gogrial was not directly affected by the national conflict (2013-2018), the government recruited heavily from the area in 2014, with the SSPDF and National Security Service (NSS) also reportedly engaged in recruitment after the 2018 R-ARCSS (Boswell 2019; UN Panel of Experts 2019). Alleged SSPDF recruitment in late 2018 and early 2019 laid the foundation for the establishment of the new 11th Division of the army. Despite the alleged extensive recruitment of youth from Greater Gogrial, resistance to recruitment was also reported following the outbreak of the national conflict (McCrone 2021, pp.10-11). The UN Human Rights Commission has also reported that forced recruitment and abductions of children occurred during post-R-ARCSS recruitment in the Gogrial area (UN HRC 2020, pp. 12-13, 26-27).
As with Greater Tonj, the centrality of elites from Gogrial in the politics of Juba has not been associated with significant improvements in social or economic infrastructure within Greater Gogrial, and has created a number of vulnerabilities to conflict owing to the interaction between elites operating at the local and national levels. Elites from Warrap have particular access to both the government and resources from Juba, which derives in part from the level of support delivered to the national government over many decades, and including during the 2013-2018 national conflict, with large numbers of SPLA commanders as well as thousands of rural youths being recruited into various security services from Warrap State. However, since the signing of the R-ARCSS in 2018, elite competition in Juba has informed conflict in much of Warrap, including in Gogrial East.
Border and land disputes have been a particular focal point for conflict in Greater Gogrial. However, rather than being purely localised phenomenon, land and boundary issues are an expression of elite competition for control over administrative and land-based resources. The contestation of land and boundaries in Gogrial East emerged as a direct result of changes to political ordering surrounding the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement and the 2011 declaration of independence. In 2004, Greater Gogrial was divided into Gogrial East and Gogrial West counties, with Twic county having been previously separated out. Although the division was a government decision justified by the argument that Greater Gogrial was too large, the division was also interpreted in some communities as an assertion of power of the Apuk section. In addition to contributing to serious conflict in 2007 and 2008, the division of these counties created disputes over boundaries that continue today. Conflicts, notably serious intra-Dinka conflicts from 2015-2017 (which were ostensibly fought over boundaries and resources) are often assessed by analysts as being as much about the balance of power between competing elites and sections, as they were about land and access to resources (Craze 2022, pp.21-25; de Waal and Pendle 2019, pp.190-191; McCrone 2021, p.13). The UN Human Rights Commission stated they were informed that over 300 civilians were killed in the conflict, with the conflict also resulting in abductions of women and children, alongside reports of looting and destruction of homes and medical facilities (UN HRC 2020, p.15).
In recent years, Gogrial West has been less exposed to the kinds of cross-border cattle raids and conflict that has affected Gogrial East. However, a dispute of ownership of Nyinakook (in Western Bahr el-Ghazal State’s Jur River County) involving elements of the Apuk section from Gogrial West and the community who settled in Nyinakook has been the source of intermittent violent conflict (Pendle and Madut Anei 2018). Despite intra-Dinka conflicts in Gogrial West being infrequent when compared to much of post-R-ARCSS Warrap State, fighting over grazing land was reported to have killed five people in December 2023 (Eye Radio 2023).
Historically, northern Warrap State has also been affected by disputes concerning the Abyei border. Abyei border disputes displaced thousands in 2008-2009 and again in 2011, with thousands of refugees from Abyei settling temporarily in Gogrial West. In September 2015, delegations of the Dinka community from Gogrial West and Twic joined those from the Abyei area and Misseriya of Sudan in Aweil for a consultative conference. The dialogue aimed to restore the relationship with the Arab Misseriya (Awald Kamil) of South Kordofan, Sudan and the Rek and Twic Dinka clans of Warrap State, and has eased tensions between the groups.
Administration & Logistics
Payams: Gogrial (County Headquarters), Alek South, Alek North, Alek West, Kuac North, Kuac South, Akon South, Akon North, Riau
UN OCHA 2020 map of Gogrial West County: https://reliefweb.int/map/south-sudan/south-sudan-gogrial-west-county-reference-map-march-2020
Roads:
- The state capital Kuajok is connected by a primary road north-south from Wau in Western Bahr-el Ghazal State to Abyei and Mayom in Unity State, forking in Twic County. In the rainy season of 2024, the road was deemed passable between Wau and Wunrok/Wun Roj in Twic County, with the Abyei and Mayom branches both designated as being “passable with difficulties.” In the dry season of 2025, these branches were designated as being passable.
- A road connects Kuajok to Lunyaker in Gogrial East, however seasonal conditions are unknown.
UNHAS-recognised Heli and Fixed-Wing Airplane Airstrips: Kuajok and Alek
References
Boswell, A. (2019). Insecure Power and Violence: The Rise and Fall of Paul Malong and the Mathiang Anyoor. Retrieved 18 July 2023.
Cormack, Z.T. (2014). The Making and Remaking of Gogrial: Landscape, history and memory in South Sudan. Doctoral thesis, Durham University. Retrieved 18 July 2023.
Cormack, Z.T. (2017). The spectacle of death: visibility and concealment at an unfinished memorial in South Sudan. Journal of Eastern African Studies 11 (1), pp. 115–132. Retrieved 20 October 2023.
Craze, J. (2022). ‘And Everything Became War:’ Warrap State Since the Signing of the R-ARCSS. Small Arms Survey/HSBA. Retrieved 18 July 2023.
Eye Radio. (2023). Calm in Gogrial West after 5 killed in clashes over grazing land. Retrieved 5 January 2024.
FAO/WFP. (2023). Special Report: FAO/WFP Crop and Food Security Assessment Mission to South Sudan. Retrieved 31 July 2023. See equivalent versions of the CFSAM report online for data from previous years.
FEWSNET. (2018). Livelihoods Zone Map and Descriptions for the Republic of South Sudan (Updated). Retrieved 10 July 2023.
IOM. (2013). Village Assessment Survey: Gogrial West County Atlas. Retrieved 18 July 2023.
IRNA. (2021). Gogrial West County IRNA report, 12 October 2021. Retrieved 18 July 2023.
Madut-Arop, A. (2006). Sudan’s Painful Road to Peace: A Full Story of the Founding and Development of SPLM/SPLA. Booksurge Publishing.
McCrone, F. (2021). The war (s) in South Sudan: local dimensions of conflict, governance and the political marketplace. Retrieved 18 July 2023.
OCHA. (2021). Humanitarian Needs Overview: South Sudan 2021. Retrieved 10 July 2023.
REACH. (2019a). South Sudan – Food Security and Livelihoods (FSL). Assessment of Hard-to-Reach Areas in South Sudan. Retrieved 18 July 2023.
REACH. (2019b). Situation Overview: Greater Bahr el Ghazal, South Sudan. January – March 2019. Retrieved 18 July 2023.
REACH. (2020). Integrated Needs Tracking (INT) County Profile – Gogrial West County. Retrieved 18 July 2023.
REACH. (2022). Integrated Needs Tracking (INT) County Profiles. Retrieved 18 July 2023.
UN HRC. (2020). Report of the Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan, A/HRC/43/56. Retrieved 20 October 2023.
de Waal, A. and Pendle, N. (2019). ‘Decentralisation and the logic of the political marketplace in South Sudan’ in Deng, L. and Logan, S. (eds) The Struggle for South Sudan: Challenges of Security and State Formation, 172–194. London: I.B. Tauris.
Reports on Gogrial West
Cormack, Z.T. (2014). The Making and Remaking of Gogrial: Landscape, history and memory in South Sudan. Doctoral thesis, Durham University. Retrieved 18 July 2023.
Cormack, Z. (2016). Borders are galaxies: Interpreting contestations over local administrative boundaries in South Sudan. Africa, 86 (3), 504-527. Retrieved 18 July 2023.
Diing, A. and Pendle, N. (2021). ‘I Kept My Gun’: Displacement’s Impact on Reshaping Social Distinction During Return, Journal of Refugee Studies, 33 (4), 791-812. Retrieved 18 July 2023.
Lawry, L., et al. (2017). A mixed methods assessment of barriers to maternal, newborn and child health in Gogrial West, South Sudan. Reproductive Health 14(12). Retrieved 18 July 2023.
Pendle, N. (2015). ‘“They Are Now Community Police”: Negotiating the Boundaries and Nature of the Government in South Sudan through the Identity of Militarised Cattle-keepers’, International Journal on Minority and Group Rights, 22(3), 410-434. Retrieved 18 July 2023.
Pendle, N. (2018). ‘The dead are just to drink from’: recycling ideas of revenge among the western Dinka, South Sudan. Africa, 88 (1), 99-121. Retrieved 18 July 2023.
Pendle, N. and Madut Anei, C. (2018). Wartime Trade and the Reshaping of Power in South Sudan: Learning from the market of Mayen Rual. Rift Valley Institute. Retrieved 18 July 2023.
Pendle, N. (2023). Spiritual Contestations: The Violence of Peace in South Sudan. Rochester, NY: James Currey. Open access eBook retrieved 18 July 2023.
Pendle, N. (2023). Law and Famine: Learning from the Hunger Courts in South Sudan. Development and Change 54(3), 467–489. Retrieved 18 July 2023.
Saferworld. (2018). Communities tackling small arms and light weapons in South Sudan: lessons learnt and best practices. Retrieved 18 July 2023.
* Note: The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) Population Estimation Survey (PES) was published in April 2023 based on data collected in May-June 2021. This uses a different method to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) Population Working Group (PWG) figures produced based on a combination of 2008 census data and population movement data up to 2022. The large discrepancies are primarily attributable to these different methods rather than changes in the actual population numbers over time and have been disputed by some civil society and analysts. Although the later PWG figures were produced more recently for the HNO 2023, at the request of the Government of South Sudan the data and method used by the PES is being used as the basis for the Common Operational Dataset (COD) for the UN system for the HNO 2024 and likely beyond. For further detail on this and other sources used in the county profiles, see the accompanying Methodological Note.
