Lainya

Lainya County, Central Equatoria State

Demographics

2008 NBS Census population: 89,315

2021 NBS PES population estimate*: 82,153

2022 UN OCHA population estimate*: 113,928

2024 UN OCHA population estimate*: 82,153

2024 IPC population estimate: 117,346

2025 UN OCHA population estimate*: 119,155

Ethnic groups: Pajulu/Pojulu

Displacement Figures as of September 2024: 8,318 IDPs (-10,266 Sept. 2023) and 12,470 returnees ( -15,765 Sept. 2023)
IPC Food Security: November 2024 – Crisis (Phase 3); IPC Food Security: December to March 2025 – Crisis (Phase 3); April to July 2025 – Crisis (Phase 3)

Economy & Livelihoods

Lainya County is in Central Equatoria State. It borders Juba County to the northeast, Kajo-Keji County to the southeast, Morobo County to the southwest, and Yei County to the west. It also shares narrow borders with Mundri West (Western Equatoria State) to the northwest and Uganda to the south.

According to FEWSNET (2018), Lainya County falls within the equatorial maize and cassava livelihoods zone. Lainya County is primarily and has historically been an agricultural area. An estimated 43% of households in Lainya County engaged in farming, with a gross cereal yield of 1.2 tonnes per hectare in 2021 and 2022 (FAO/WFP 2022; FAO/WFP 2023). However, insecurity and displacement have prevented residents from having safe, consistent access to their land during planting and harvesting. This has resulted in one of the largest reductions in harvested areas observed in South Sudan since the outbreak of conflict in 2016. Additionally, the migration of cattle keepers from other parts of the country (primarily Mundari from Terekeka, Dinka from Awerial and Jonglei) to Lainya has contributed to crop destruction and localized conflict.

Lainya County is known for its forests – especially teak – which have provided a financial resource for opposition groups operating in the area. As a result, residents who have owned forested land or otherwise engaged in forestry as their livelihood have also lost access to this source of income. Compounding this is the fact that South Sudan lacks reforestation programs, leading to the depletion of this natural resource for future generations as well. However, informal employment with logging companies as loggers, loaders, and truckers has provided a significant number of jobs, mostly for men, in Lainya County. Hunting, fishing, and raising livestock are also documented as livelihoods practiced by the residents of the area. However, logging has undermined some of these more traditional livelihoods, given local communities’ dependence on forests for building materials, firewood, food, and medicinal resources (SSCOC & POF 2020). Lainya has experienced deforestation as a result of teak production, especially in and around the Loka Forest Reserve. The IPC projected the county to be at a crisis (IPC level 3) level of food insecurity in March 2025, with conditions projected to persist at the same level until at least mid-2025.

Infrastructure & Services 

The county’s headquarters are in Lainya Payam. Lainya County does not have major urban centers; however, it has a main market area along the Juba-Yei Road that sees traffic from both trade and public transportation. Insecurity and limited access during times of conflict have restricted aid organizations’ activities in the area.

Lainya County is home to thirty-one (31) early childhood development centers and fifty-eight (58) primary schools. There are five (5) secondary schools in Lainya County.

In December 2024, the WHO reported that Lainya County had twenty-two (22) health facilities, of which twenty (20) were functional. These functional facilities comprised thirteen (13) primary health care units (PHCUs), seven (7) primary health care centers (PHCCs), and no hospitals. This translates to approximately 1.64 PHCUs per 15,000 people and 2.94 PHCCs per 50,000 people in the county at that time. According to OCHA’s 2025 Humanitarian Needs Overview, an estimated 66,806 people in Lainya County are in need, representing approximately 56% of the county’s total population as reported by OCHA for 2025. For comparison, in 2024, OCHA reported that an estimated 49,603 people were in need in Lainya County, of whom 34,314 were non-displaced, with the remainder comprising IDPs and returnees. OCHA highlights Lainya as one of the counties with the highest level of recorded explosive contamination, with landmine and ERW clearance ongoing (OCHA 2021, p. 67). It is also identified as one of the most under-assessed counties, with obstacles to assessment including physical access constraints and insecurity (OCHA 2021, p. 84), including attacks on aid workers based on ethnic identity and looting of humanitarian convoys (OCHA 2021, p. 22). 

Conflict Dynamics

Situated along the critical road between Juba and Yei, Lainya town has been a strategically important location for military operations and the war economy. Control of the town changed hands multiple times between the SPLM/A and the SAF during the second Sudanese civil war (Madut-Arop 2006, p.159), and teak was smuggled from Lainya across the Ugandan border by both the Sudan Armed Forces and the SPLM/A (de Simone 2022, p.175). After the Comprehensive Peace Agreement was signed in 2005, Yei River District was divided into four smaller units, including Lainya County.

Lainya shares disputed borders with neighboring Juba and Yei counties, which have been entangled in inter- and intra-ethnic disputes (Justin and de Vries 2019). In 2010, a dispute between Juba and Lainya counties over the jurisdiction of Wonduruba Payam escalated during the 2010 elections, dividing the Pajulu and Nyangwara communities. This culminated in an assassination attempt on a prominent SPLM member who favored including Wonduruba Payam in Juba County, possibly to enlarge their constituency (Leonardi 2013, p. 191). This led to a negotiated compromise, with the Payam treated as independent of either county for electoral constituencies. In 2007, a localized land dispute along the boundary between Yei and Lainya counties, involving Pajulu chiefs from both counties, escalated into a broader political dispute between parts of the Pajulu and Kakwa communities over the location of the border. A separate incident in 2007 saw residents of Kenyi Payam occupy a forest area that had been leased to a private company for logging, preventing operations from commencing. The incident brought together communities from parts of Lainya and Yei who faced either eviction from the leased areas and/or the loss of access to the forest to meet their livelihood needs (de Simone 2022, pp. 175-77).

In recent years, clashes involving parts of the Mundari and Dinka Bor pastoralist communities have been reported in Lainya County (Radio Tamazuj, 2015), alongside friction and, at times, violent conflict between local residents and pastoralists. In early 2021, conflict among Mundari pastoralists spread from Juba County to Lainya. NAS forces (see below) were drawn into the intra-Mundari conflict and were reported to have been involved in an incident in January 2021 that killed 12 people (UNSC 2021, p. 4). A series of attacks by alleged Mundari pastoralists against local farmers was also reported in the first half of 2021 (Radio Tamazuj, 2021a). In March 2023, suspected Dinka Bor pastoralists were alleged to have killed several civilians in Wuji Payam, though the circumstances surrounding the attack remain unclear (Radio Tamazuj, 2023).

Lainya County was not significantly affected during the initial stages of the national conflict (2013-2018), though it received a large number of IDPs from nearby areas, including Juba (IRNA 2014). Insecurity in the area intensified as Riek Machar fled Juba in June 2016 and took the southern route to the Congolese border, passing through Lainya and Yei. Local militias in Lainya (who had previously mobilized against armed Dinka pastoralists) fought alongside Machar’s largely Nuer forces, forming a new arm of the rebel movement (Boswell, 2021). As in other parts of Central Equatoria, the conflict in Lainya took the form of insurgent activity and repressive counter-insurgency, with an ethnic inflection. During the conflict, government forces held towns in the county, while the opposition was largely limited to guerrilla-style operations from rural bases. When CTSAMM visited Lainya in January and February 2017, they found that 3,080 residences had been burned, leaving most of the population forcibly displaced. Human rights monitors also recorded reports of conflict-related sexual violence in these areas (UNMISS, 2019). The OHCHR reported that it had reasonable grounds to believe that the SPLA and its allied Mathiang Anyoor** forces engaged in serious human rights violations in Central Equatoria, including killings, rape, arbitrary detentions, torture, destruction of civilian property, and looting in Lainya, Yei, and Kajo-Keji counties between July 11, 2016, and December 2017 (OHCHR, 2018).

The establishment of the National Salvation Front (NAS) in February 2017 created a new conflict dynamic in parts of Greater Equatoria. By September 2018, NAS had secured a firm hold on territories around Lainya – particularly in the southern part of the county toward Yei and in the northwest toward the disputed Wonduruba Payam. Government offensives throughout 2019 dislodged many of these NAS positions, leaving NAS reliant on hit-and-run tactics that disrupted road networks. NAS activity and government-led counterinsurgency operations continue to define the security context in Lainya, with cycles of ambushes, counterattacks, and abductions undermining livelihoods and recovery options, even as civilians return from displacement in neighboring states. Severe fighting between NAS, the SSPDF, and the SPLA-IO occurred from January to June 2020. ACLED reported that in May 2020, 11 villages in the area were burned, and an estimated 22,000 people were displaced (Amnesty International, 2020). Soldiers accused civilians of feeding NAS fighters and acting as their informers (Amnesty International, 2020). Fighting between the forces continued intermittently in Lainya in 2021 and 2022, though it declined in 2023. Alleged abuses of the civilian population by security forces have been reported during this time (UN HRC, 2023, p. 14), and these have been disputed by the military (Radio Tamazuj, 2021b).

Administration & Logistics

Payams: Lainya (County Headquarters), Kenyi, Kupera, Mukaya, and Wuji

UN OCHA 2020 map of LainyaCounty: https://reliefweb.int/map/south-sudan/south-sudan-lainya-county-reference-map-march-2020

Roads:

  • Lainya is located along the primary road running between Juba to its northeast and Yei to its southwest. Road conditions deteriorate during the rainy season, with the Lainya-Juba stretch deemed “Passable with difficulties” in 2022 and impassable to Yei town. The road was fully passable in the dry seasons of 2023 and 2024.
  • The conditions of a secondary road connecting Lainya to Jambo town in neighbouring Mundri East County are unknown for both the rainy and dry seasons of 2022 and 2023, respectively.
  • Several security incidents have been reported in recent years along the road connecting Yei to Maridi.

UNHAS-recognised Heli and Fixed-Wing Airplane Airstrips: None

References

Africa Confidential. (1999). Gas mask. Retrieved 7 October 2023.

Amnesty International. (2020). South Sudan: UN arms embargo must be maintained after surge in violence against civilians in 2020. Retrieved 13 July 2023.

Boswell, A. (2019). Insecure Power and Violence: The Rise and Fall of Paul Malong and the Mathiang Anyoor. Retrieved 18 July 2023.

Boswell, A. (2021). Conflict and Crisis in South Sudan’s Equatoria. Retrieved 13 July 2023.

De Simone, S. (2022). State-building South Sudan: International Intervention and the Formation of a Fragmented State. Leiden: Brill.

FAO & WFP. (2018). Special Report: FAO/WFP Crop and Food Security Assessment Mission to South Sudan. Retrieved 13 July 2023.

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

IRNA. (2014). Initial Rapid Needs Assessment: Juba (Bungu and Ganji Payams), Lainya and Yei Counties, Central Equatoria State, 5 – 6 February 2014. Retrieved 13 June 2023.

Justin, P.H. and de Vries, L. (2019). Governing Unclear Lines: Local Boundaries as a (Re)source of Conflict in South Sudan, Journal of Borderlands Studies 34 (1), pp. 31-46.

Leonardi, C. (2013). Dealing with Government in South Sudan: Histories of Chiefship, Community and State. Oxford: James Currey.

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

OCHA. (2021). Humanitarian Needs Overview: South Sudan 2021. Retrieved 13 July 2023.

OHCHR. (2018). Report of the Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan. Retrieved 13 July 2023.

Radio Tamazuj. (2015). Fighting between herders in Central Equatoria kills 12 people. Retrieved 11 October 2023.

Radio Tamazuj. (2017). Lainya County suspends teak tree logging. Retrieved 13 July 2023.

Radio Tamazuj. (2021a). Terekeka County cattle keepers leave Lainya County. Retrieved 11 October 2023.

Radio Tamazuj. (2021b). SSPDF denies involvement in Lianya [sic] killings, blames NAS. Retrieved 11 October 2023.

Radio Tamazuj. (2023). MPs demand justice for Lainya County murder victims. Retrieved 11 October 2023.

SSCOC & POF. (2020). The Impact of Logging Activities on Local Communities. Retrieved 13 July 2023.

UN HRC (Human Rights Council). (2023). Report of the Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan, A/HRC/52/26. Retrieved 11 October 2023.

UNMISS. (2019). Conflict-related Violations and Abuses in Central Equatoria, September 2018—April 2019. Retrieved 13 July 2023.

UNSC. (2021). Situation in South Sudan: Report of the Secretary-General, S/2021/172. Retrieved 11 October 2023.

Reports on Lainya

Aquila, L. (2021). Child labour, education, and commodification in South Sudan. Rift Valley Institute/XCEPT.

Boswell, A. (2021). Conflict and Crisis in South Sudan’s Equatoria. Retrieved 13 July 2023.

Danish Refugee Council. (2022). Lainya Centre Payam Lainya County Central Eqautoria: DRC-Rapid Protection Assessment – March 2022. Retrieved 10 March 2025.

Global Rights Compliance. (2022). No Choice but to Flee: Starvation and Displacement in Central Equatoria, South Sudan. Retrieved 13 July 2023.

Malo, M.O., Ladu, J.L.C., Mukeka, J., & Gweyi-Onyango, J. (2024). Cattle population and attributed grazing intensities in Central Equatorial, South Sudan. International Journal of Livestock Production, 15(2), 7–14. Retrieved 8 March 2025.

Mountfort, H. (2012). Livelihoods and Basic Services in Lainya County, South Sudan. Retrieved 13 July 2023.

IOM. (2013). Village Assessment Survey: County Atlas. Unavailable online in July 2023.

Plan, Tearfund, UNHCR, UNOCHA. (2022). Berogoand Koyoki Wuji Payam, Lainya County, Central Equatoria State: Assessment of Conflict-Affected Communities – 3 February 2022. Accessed 10 March 2025.

UNEP. (2013). South Sudan Pilot and Community Forestry Project: Forest Cover Mapping in Ifwoto and Lainya Payams – Technical Report. Retrieved 13 July 2023.

UNMISS. (2019). Conflict-related Violations and Abuses in Central Equatoria, September 2018—April 2019. Retrieved 13 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. It uses a different method from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) Population Working Group (PWG) figures, which are 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 are 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.

** Note: The name ‘Mathiang Anyoor’ has been used in a variety of ways, some of which have conflict sensitivity implications. Initially, it referred to a paramilitary force established in 2012 in Northern Bahr el-Ghazal State, primarily comprising Dinka (and some Luo) recruits. Desertions and heavy losses during the early stages of the national conflict led to further rounds of recruitment from Warrap and Northern Bahr el-Ghazal states in 2014 and 2015, which occurred alongside SPLA recruitment (including from predominantly Dinka areas). The term was also increasingly deployed pejoratively by opposition groups to refer to Dinka SPLA/SSPDF soldiers during the second half of the national conflict (2013-2018), as the conflict intensified in Greater Equatoria. In Lainya County, it is not possible to reliably determine whether forces locally described as ‘Mathiang Anyoor’ have connections to the paramilitary force of the same name or refer to Dinka SPLA/SSPDF soldiers based in the area. See Boswell (2019).