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Ikotos/Ikwoto County, Eastern Equatoria State

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DEMOGRAPHY

2008 NBS Census population: 84,649
2021 NBS PES population estimate*: 61,228
2022 UN OCHA population estimate*: 107,047

Ethnic groups: Lango (Lokwa and Loromawa), Dongotono, Ketebo, Logir, Imotong/Horiyok, Otuho/Lotuko (Lofi and Ifotu)

Displacement Figures Q3 2022: 14,650 IDPs (+14,131 Q1 2020) and 15,855 returnees (+8,185 Q1 2020)

IPC Food Security: November 2022 – Crisis (Phase 3); IPC Projections: December to March 2023 – Crisis (Phase 3); April to July 2023 – Emergency (Phase 4)
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ECONOMY & LIVELIHOODS

Ikotos County – also known locally as Ikwoto County – is located in Eastern Equatoria State. It borders Torit County to the north-west, Budi County to the north-east, and has a narrow border with Magwi County to the west. It also has a border with Uganda to the south. The Imatong Mountains run from Torit in the north through Ikotos County towards Uganda, and contain the highest elevation in South Sudan. Historically, Ikotos’ forests were expansive, however this has reduced in recent years. This has occurred in part to deforestation, as the natural resources are often extracted without regulation, and transported across the Ugandan border for sale.

The county is categorized as being in the equatorial maize and cassava livelihoods zone (FEWSNET 2018). A report from 2018 estimated that 80% of households engage in agriculture (FAO/WFP 2018) with the same estimate being reported in data from 2021 (FAO/WFP 2022). In 2021, gross cereal yields were estimated to be 1.15 tonnes per hectare, increasing to 1.2 tonnes per hectare in 2022 (FAO/WFP 2023). Farmers in the area cultivate a variety of crops including millet, cassava, sweet potatoes, onions, cabbage, maize, tobacco and sorghum, while tea and coffee plantations are located in the Upper Talanga area in Hatire Payam.

Sustained insecurity in the area since the 1980s, from multiple sources, had inhibited economic development and stability. Poverty and unemployment continue to be challenges, particularly for male youth who resort to cattle raiding to obtain food and cattle for dowries. Additionally, insecurity has prevented long-term cultivation, and limited the importing of goods to supply the local markets.

Forestry was previously a viable livelihood; however, the depletion of the resource has lowered the viability of this option as an income-generating activity compared to forested areas in other parts of South Sudan. Cattle-rearing is also a primary livelihood among the communities in Ikotos, with cattle-keeping communities in the Kidepo Valley migrating with their livestock across the Ugandan border during the dry season. The Kidepo Valley has reportedly been designated as a game reserve by the government. Additionally, alluvial gold mining has been reported in parts of northern and western Ikotos (GI-TOC 2023, p.4).

The IPC projected the county as being at a crisis (IPC level 3) level of food insecurity in November 2022, with conditions projected to persist at the same level until March 2023, whereupon they are predicted to decline to emergency levels (IPC level 4) between April and July 2023.
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The county headquarters are located in Ikotos Town, in Ikotos Payam. During the Sudanese civil wars, farmers in Ikotos struggled to maintain their crops. Markets in the area were also poorly supplied due to insecure roads, and high poverty rates meant that many people could not afford the goods available. As a result, raiding other communities – such as the Lotuko of Torit County – for cattle became more frequent. High unemployment rates also contribute to banditry in the area.

Ikotos County is home to seven (7) Early Childhood Development centres, forty-five (45 primary schools and seven (7) secondary schools.

Ikotos County was reported to have thirty-one (31) health facilities, all of them were reported to be functional. Among the health facilities, there are twenty-six (26) PHCUs, four (4) PHCCs and one (1) hospital in 2022. This means that there were an estimated 3.65 PHCUs per 15,000 people and 1.87 PHCCs per 50,000 people according to the WHO, which ranks Ikotos as among the ten counties with the highest ratios of PHCUs/person in South Sudan. St. Theresa Isohe Mission Hospital was reported to be moderately functional.

According to OCHA’s Humanitarian Needs Overview for 2023, over 56,500 people in the county have humanitarian needs (an increase of over 10,000 from 2021), which accounts for nearly 53% of the projected population reported in the HNO. Water points are insufficient, forcing women to travel long distances to obtain water for their households and hindering health outcomes in the county. Informants report that mobile phone networks were restored in 2019 following their suspension following clashes in 2016, and that MTN services within Ikotos town are functional, albeit with connectivity issues reported in areas outside of the vicinity of the town.
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Falling within the Kidepo Valley that stretches into northern Uganda, Ikotos County has been a site of long-standing patterns of conflict and co-operation among groups residing in the valley. In the main, conflict in and around the county has traditionally tended to take place between (rather than within) ethnic groups, though the same groups have also enjoyed periods of co-operation and mutual assistance (Simonse 2000, p.35). Intermarriage among the communities of Ikotos has been historically common, although the increasing militarisation during periods of national conflict (see below) placed strain on relations between communities. Raiding relationships between some communities from Ikotos and Budi counties escalated during the first and second Sudanese civil wars (1955-1972 and 1983-2005, respectively), resulting in a successful peace mediation in 1965 and less successful mediations during the late 1980s and 1990s (Simonse 2000, pp.35-37), which took place in the context of an increasingly fragmented national conflict and widespread gun ownership.

The SPLM/A arrived in Ikotos in the late 1980s, with the arrival reportedly being linked to the displacement of residents of the area (Ochan 2007, p.6). Ikotos County experienced clashes between SPLM/A and government-aligned splinter groups following the 1991 SPLM/A split, with the area reverting to government control (Human Rights Watch 1993, Madut-Arop 2006, p.316). By the late 1990s Ikotos was again under SPLM/A control (Africa Confidential 1998), while Ikotos town was bombed several times by the Sudanese Air Force between 2000 and 2002 (SCIO 2001). The presence of contending forces in the area increased the supply of firearms in and around the county, with long lasting and adverse effects for security, particularly in rural areas and along roads (Small Arms Survey 2010). Increasingly widespread gun ownership in the region also aggravated existing patterns of cattle raiding involving communities from Ikotos and some neighbouring groups – including parts of the Lotuko, Didinga, and Buya/Larim communities, alongside the Karamojong of northern Uganda – resulting in lethal raiding and reprisal attacks (Ochan 2007, pp.7-9, 14-17). In 2003 an effort was made to bring together various communities affected by the escalating cross-border conflict as part of the Kidepo Valley Peace and Reconciliation Conference. Although the conference served as a useful forum for beginning a process of constructive dialogue, it was generally regarded as being unsuccessful at bringing sustained peaceable relations between the affected communities (Kurimoto 2004). Ikotos was also severely affected by insecurity relating to the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) between 2002 and 2005 (Schomerus 2008, p.11).

After the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in 2005, cattle raiding persisted in Ikotos County, and became linked to tensions between parts of the local population and SPLA due to perceived biases in how raiding was being handled by security services (Ochan 2007, p.20-22; Schomerus 2008, p.10). In 2006, a peace conference was organised among the communities of Ikotos. A local NGO attempted to construct a peace village at Kamulach (along the border with Budi County’s Didinga community), though funding difficulties and reported insecurity meant the project was not completed (Ochan 2007, p.26). Significant violence involving parts of Ikotos’ Dongotono and Logir communities was reported in August 2007 at Chorokol (Mc Evoy and Murray 2008, p.24). Security and relations between Ikotos’ communities further deteriorated after 2009, while the Small Arms Survey (2010, p.9) reported that communities who had been disarmed were left vulnerable during this time period. In November 2009, escalating clashes between parts of the Dongotono and Logir communities were reported in the Isohe/Isoke area (Small Arms Survey 2010, p.3). In addition to conflict within Ikotos, the time period also saw ongoing cross-border conflict: in April 2013, 14 people (including soldiers) were reportedly killed in a cattle raid, with the raiders alleged to have come from Budi County (Radio Miraya 2013).

During the national conflict (2013-2018), Ikotos experienced a limited degree of conflict and insecurity from late 2015 onwards, driving displacement in the area. In late 2015 an informal armed group reportedly attacked an SPLA barracks in the county, killing at least two people (Eye Radio 2015). Clashes involving opposition forces and the SPLA were reported in the county in July 2016, and led to a number of fatalities alongside the destruction of homes and crops (Radio Tamazuj 2016). While conflict was relatively limited, Ikotos is reported to be one of a limited number of areas of Eastern Equatoria where the SPLM-IO enjoys a degree of local power and popular support, with a number of opposition commanders and senior party members drawn from the area.

Since the signing of the R-ARCSS in 2018, the Small Arms Survey (2021, p.5) observed rising insecurity and increasing numbers of security forces and opposition groups operating in Ikotos County. The SPLM-IO nomineesfor the position of county commissioner for Ikotos have been contested and at times in tension with the wider state government. These reportedly centre around its perceived strong affiliation with the SPLM-IO, the regulation of gold mining in the county and allocation of state financial resources. Separately, the UN Panel of Experts (2020, pp.32-33) alleged that the cross-border trade in timber between Ikotos and Uganda has reportedly involved elements of the security services.

In recent years, northern areas of Ikotos County have been affected by reciprocal cross-border raiding with parts of the neighbouring Lotuko communities of Torit County, while communities from eastern Ikotos have engaged in reciprocal cross-border raids with parts of the Didinga and Buya/Larim communities of neighbouring Budi County (UNSC 2022, p.4; Radio Tamazuj 2022a). Insecurity has also continued to be reported along the road between Ikotos town and Tseretenya (close to the Ugandan border). Occasional localised disputes or cattle raiding within the communities of Ikotos have also occurred (Radio Tamazuj 2021a; Radio Tamazuj 2022b), while attacks on security personal by unknown groups have been reported in the county (Radio Tamazuj 2021b; Radio Tamazuj 2021c). Tensions between local youth and security forces escalated in July 2022 in unclear circumstances, resulting in a number of deaths and displacement from the town (Eye Radio 2022; Sudans Post 2022). The insecurity coincided with increasing conflict – including cattle raids and revenge attacks – between parts of the communities from Chorokol Boma (in Lomohidang South Payam) and Ikotos Central Boma near Ikotos town (UNMISS 2022). Security in the county had reportedly improved by early 2023 following a peace mediation involving local authorities, the South Sudan Council of Churches and UNMISS (UNMISS 2023).

The deployment of the Ugandan military (the UPDF) to Ikotos during the 2000s as part of counter-LRA activities in the area had at times been contentious. Local actors had alleged that the UPDF had made a number of encroachments along the border area (Schomerus 2008, p.14, 33) and additional allegations of perceived encroachment by the UPDF being made by several local MPs much later in 2022 (Radio Tamazuj 2022c). Low-level cross-border cattle raiding has also been periodically reported in the border area, notably in Ikotos’ Losite Payam and adjacent areas in northern Uganda’s Lamwo District.
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Payams: Ikotos (County Headquarters), Hatire, Imotong, Lomohidang North, Lomohidang South, Losite

UN OCHA 2020 map of Ikotos County: https://reliefweb.int/map/south-sudan/south-sudan-ikotos-county-reference-map-march-2020

Roads:

One primary road runs north out of Ikotos town to Hiyala village (Torit County), eventually connecting to the Torit-Kapoeta road. The road was designated as being passable during the 2022 rainy season and 2023 dry season.
There is a secondary road running east to Chukudum town (via Kidepo) and another running south to the border with Uganda (via Mosingo). Conditions on these roads are unknown.
A tertiary road network covers parts of northern Ikotos County. The condition of this network is unknown.

UNHAS-recognised Heli and Fixed-Wing Airplane Airstrips: None
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Africa Confidential. (1998). Famine strikes. Retrieved 18 January 2024.

Eye Radio. (2015). Two killed in SPLA clashes with civilians in Ikotos. Retrieved 14 July 2023.

Eye Radio. (2022). Official unhappy with soldiers brutal attack on Ikotos civilians. Retrieved 22 January 2024.

FAO/WFP. (2018). Special Report: FAO/WFP Crop and Food Security Assessment Mission to South Sudan. Retrieved 14 July 2023.

FAO/WFP. (2023). Special Report: FAO/WFP Crop and Food Security Assessment Mission to South Sudan. Retrieved 31 July 2023.

FEWSNET. (2018). Livelihoods Zone Map and Descriptions for the Republic of South Sudan (Updated). Retrieved 10 July 2023.

GI-TOC, Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime. (2023). Tarnished hope: Crime and corruption in South Sudan’s gold sector. Retrieved 17 February 2024.

Human Rights Watch. (1993). Civilian Devastation: Abuses by All Parties in the War in Southern Sudan. Retrieved 22 September 2023.

Kurimoto, E. (2004). A Report of the Evaluation Survey on Peace-Building Programmes in the East Bank, Equatoria Region, South Sudan, Sponsored by Pax Christi Netherlands. Retrieved via Sudan Open Archive on 24 January 2024.

Madut-Arop, A. (2006). Sudan’s Painful Road to Peace: A Full Story of the Founding and Development of SPLM/SPLA. Booksurge Publishing.

Mc Evoy, C. and Murray, R. (2008). Gauging Fear and Insecurity: Perspectives on Armed Violence in Eastern Equatoria and Turkana North. Small Arms Survey/HSBA. Retrieved 19 February 2024.

OCHA. (2021). Humanitarian Needs Overview: South Sudan 2021. Retrieved 10 July 2023.

Radio Miraya. (2013). 14 killed in Ikwotos cattle raid. Retrieved via ReliefWeb on 19 January 2024.

Radio Tamazuj. (2016). Over 400 displaced citizens return home after fighting in Ikotos County. Retrieved 22 January 2024.

Radio Tamazuj. (2021a). 5 killed, 6 injured in Ikotos county clashes. Retrieved 22 January 2024.

Radio Tamazuj. (2021b). Kideopo Wildlife Base attacked, 5 people killed. Retrieved 22 January 2024.

Radio Tamazuj. (2021c). 2 SSPDF soldiers stabbed to death, guns stolen in Ikotos County. Retrieved 22 January 2024.

Radio Tamazuj. (2022a). 2 people killed in Ikotos cattle raid. Retrieved 22 January 2024.

Radio Tamazuj. (2022b). E. Equatoria: 3 dead in Ikotos County cattle raid. Retrieved 22 January 2024.

Radio Tamazuj. (2022c). Ikotos MPs raise alarm over border encroachment by Uganda. Retrieved 22 January 2024.

Radio Tamazuj. (2023). Ikotos County: Man arrested for allegedly killing Somali driver. Retrieved 22 January 2024.

SCIO, Sudanese Catholic Information Office. (2001). Six killed after Government of Sudan airplane bombs village. Retrieved 18 January 2024.

Simonse, S. 2000. Conflicts and Peace Initiative in East Bank Equatoria, South Sudan: 1992-1999 (draft). Pax Christi. Retrieved via Sudan Open Archive on 19 January 2024.

Small Arms Survey. (2021). MAAPSS UPDATE 13 September 2021 SPLA-IO Split What’s new in the SPLA-IO? Retrieved 14 July 2023.

Sudans Post. (2022). 3 dead, county commissioner hiding as SSPDF, armed civilians clash in Eastern Equatoria. Retrieved 22 January 2024.

UNMISS. (2022). Ending ongoing tensions in Ikotos through peaceful dialogue primary concern of communities. Retrieved 22 January 2024.

UNMISS. (2023). Communities in Ikotos make remarkable peace gains following months of conflict. Retrieved 22 January 2024.

UN Panel of Experts. (2020). Final report of the Panel of Experts on South Sudan submitted pursuant to resolution 2471 (2019), S/2020/342. Retrieved 17 February 2024.

UNSC. (2022). Situation in South Sudan: Report of the Secretary-General, S/2022/156. Retrieved 22 January 2024.

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Daniel, R. (2018). Generating Sustainable Livelihoods and Leadership for Peace in South Sudan: Lessons from the Ground. Centre for Conflict Resolution. Retrieved 14 July 2023.

Deng, D. (2012). Challenges of Accountability: An Assessment of Dispute Resolution Processes in Rural South Sudan. South Sudan Law Society/PACT. Retrieved 19 January 2024.

Hodgkin, E. (2022). Letters from Isohe: Life on the edge in a school in South Sudan. London: City of Words.

Ochan, C. (2007). Responding to Violence in Ikotos County, South Sudan: Government and Local Efforts to Restore Order. Retrieved 14 July 2023.

Schomerus, M. (2008). Perilous border: Sudanese communities affected by conflict on the Sudan-Uganda border. Conciliation Resources. Retrieved 17 November 2023.

Simonse, S. (1992/2017). Kings of Disaster: Dualism, Centralism and the Scapegoat King in Southeastern Sudan. Kampala: Fountain Publishers.

Small Arms Survey. (2010). Symptoms and causes: insecurity and underdevelopment

in Eastern Equatoria. Retrieved 14 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.
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