Morobo County, Central Equatoria State
Demographics
2008 NBS Census population: 103,603
2021 NBS PES population estimate*: 39,644
2022 UN OCHA population estimate*: 116,237
2024 UN OCHA population estimate*: 39,642
2024 IPC population estimate: 119,724
2025 UN OCHA population estimate*: 136,697
Ethnic groups: Kakwa, Kaliko/Keliku, Lubara
Displacement Figures as of September 2024: 10,875 IDPs (-14,185 Sept. 2023) and 38,619 returnees (+3,805 Sept. 2023)
IPC Food Security: November 2024 – Crisis (Phase 3); IPC Projections: December to March 2025 – Crisis (Phase 3); April to July 2025 – Crisis (Phase 3)
Economy & Livelihoods
Morobo County is located in Central Equatoria State. It borders Yei County to the northwest, Lainya County to the northeast, Uganda to the southeast, and the Democratic Republic of Congo to the southwest.
The county is part of South Sudan’s greenbelt, with fertile soil that makes it a prime area for agricultural activities (Hoffman et al., 2012). According to FEWSNET (2018), Morobo County falls within the equatorial maize and cassava livelihoods zone. Groundnuts, sorghum, cassava, and maize are among the most common and marketable crops grown in the area, with bananas also grown on a more limited scale. However, due to challenges with trade and transportation, farmers often have difficulty accessing quality seeds and are frequently forced to sell their produce to wholesalers at lower prices than they could otherwise obtain if the county were better connected to larger markets.
In addition to agricultural livelihoods, half of the population reported owning cattle. The county is also one of the areas in South Sudan known for mineral extraction. A Cordaid report published in 2016 estimated that approximately 5,000 artisanal gold miners were operating in the area; however, it is unclear to what extent this number has been affected by the conflict.
Morobo County – along with nearby Lainya and Kajo-Keji Counties – is known for its forests and the export of teak, which has provided a financial resource for both armed groups operating in the area. Compounding this is South Sudan’s lack of reforestation programs, leading to the depletion of this natural resource for future generations. The border crossing at Kaya is an important transit point for exports from Morobo County and neighbouring counties to Uganda. Hunting, fishing, and raising livestock are also documented as livelihoods practiced by 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).
The IPC projected that the county would be in a crisis (IPC level 3) of food insecurity in November 2024, with conditions expected to persist at that level until at least mid-2025. An estimated 38% of households in Morobo County engaged in farming, with a gross cereal yield of 1.8 tonnes per hectare in 2021 (FAO/WFP 2022), increasing to 1.9 tonnes per hectare in 2022 (FAO/WFP 2023). A 2020 REACH assessment found worrisome negative coping strategies. In 27% of assessed settlements, residents were coping with a lack of food by feeding only children, and 23% were consuming wild foods known to make people sick. In 36% of settlements, residents reported their hunger was severe or the worst it could be, rising to 67% in 2022 (REACH, 2022). Of serious consequence to farmers, a 66% decline in crop production below the 5-year average was predicted in 2020. At the same time, all settlements continued to report having physical access to a functional market.
Infrastructure & Services
Morobo County lies along the border with Uganda, making it a key area for both migration and trade. The county maintains multiple official and unofficial migration points, with Kaya as the main point of entry. However, inadequate infrastructure, particularly roads and affordable transportation options, limits Morobo residents’ ability to expand their agricultural activities to commercial levels. Insecurity in the area has also affected residents’ ability to access their land for subsistence agricultural livelihoods.
Morobo County is home to twenty-two (22) early childhood development centers and eighty-three (83) primary schools. There are six (6) secondary schools in the county. Findings from a June 2020 IRNA indicated serious problems with the physical condition of school buildings in the county and shortages of teachers and learning supplies, including in Morobo town itself.
In December 2024, the WHO reported that Morobo County had fifteen (15) health facilities, of which twelve (12) were functional (though 58% of those functional facilities reported limited functionality). These functional facilities included ten (10) primary health care units (PHCUs), two (2) primary health care centers (PHCCs), and no hospitals. This meant there were approximately 1.1 PHCUs per 15,000 people and 0.73 PHCCs per 50,000 people in the county at that time.
According to OCHA’s 2025 Humanitarian Needs Overview, an estimated 73,446 people in Morobo County are in need, representing approximately 54% of the county’s total population as reported by OCHA for 2025. For comparison, in 2024, OCHA reported that an estimated 28,240 people in Morobo County were in need, of whom 3,286 were non-displaced, with the remainder comprising IDPs and returnees. Morobo County is among the eight counties in the Equatorial region with the highest recorded levels of landmines and explosive remnants of war, which have proliferated as a result of the recent conflict in the Equatoria region (OCHA 2021, p. 67). Landmines have made it difficult for residents to access basic services such as healthcare and schools in the area.
Conflict Dynamics
Nestled along the tri-border area between South Sudan, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), present-day Morobo County straddled multiple conflict theatres during the 1990s. Morobo was briefly seized by the SPLM/A during the third Bright Star campaign of 1990/1991 (de Bion, 2020, p. 135), but it reverted to Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) control. In March 1997, the SPLM/A – with support from the Ugandan military – seized the critical border town of Kaya and its surroundings in the initial phases of Operation Thunderbolt, dislodging the SAF (who had been assisting the Zairian military against Laurent Kabila’s forces) and their Ugandan West Nile Bank Front allies (de Vries, 2012, p. 69). The SPLM/A swiftly captured Yei town to the north. The SPLM/A held the area from that point and ultimately governed Morobo from Yei, which had become the SPLM Secretariat’s headquarters in 1998. After the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in 2005, the Yei River District was divided into four smaller counties, including Morobo.
Addressing smuggling and illicit checkpoints has been the primary security issue in the county since this time, alongside managing relations with neighbouring authorities in Uganda and the DRC. Due to its border location, Morobo County hosts large numbers of South Sudanese returnees from Uganda and the DRC. Tensions have arisen between parts of the South Sudanese and Congolese communities and their respective authorities. These tensions relate to border demarcation disputes and the tendency of some off-duty South Sudanese security forces to carry their weapons to their homes on the Congolese side of the border. In May 2016, a conflict near the border was sparked by the alleged raising of Congolese flags in villages in Morobo County and was referred to the national government, according to local media reports (Gurtong, 2016). As Morobo became increasingly insecure after 2016 (a situation that has also resulted in deteriorating humanitarian conditions), the county has also been a site of attacks on humanitarian workers (Global Rights Compliance, 2022). In October 2019, IOM staff monitoring the border for Ebola were kidnapped, and three were killed by armed groups in Kaya (IOM, 2019). This led to the indefinite suspension of border monitoring. Aside from periodic cross-border tensions, relations among the communities of Morobo have been peaceful, with no reports of significant tensions or violence.
During the initial stages of the national conflict (2013-2018), Morobo County escaped the worst of the fighting. However, since 2016 Morobo and its neighbouring counties of Kajo-Keji and Yei became increasingly unstable, whilst ambushes along the Yei-Kaya Road have increased. With the strategic Kaya border crossing and teak and gold resources, government and opposition forces fiercely contested these areas, later drawing in the National Salvation Front (NAS) as well. The government were able to retain control of Morobo and Kaya towns, and repelled an SPLA-IO assault on Kaya in August 2017 (Africa Confidential, 2017). During the failed assault, a journalist of joint British and American nationality who had been embedded within the SPLA-IO was also killed, in circumstances which have yet to be determined (Reporters Without Borders 2023). Despite the signing of the R-ARCSS in 2018, NAS – which is not a signatory to the agreement – continues to operate in the area. Insurgent and counter-insurgent activity has generally taken the form of targeted attacks on roads, abductions, rape and killings, looting, the destruction of villages, forced displacement, and intimidation of the local population. Since late 2018, the focus of insecurity has been fighting between NAS and the SPLA-IO. Additional insecurity followed the September 2020 defection of a Major General from the SPLA-IO to the SSDPF in Kajo-Keji. Intermittent attacks, attributed by authorities to the SPLA-IO or NAS, have been reported in Morobo County since then (Radio Tamazuj, 2022; UNSC 2022, p.4), while flare-ups of insecurity have continued along the Yei-Kaya Road (Eye Radio, 2022). In 2024, tensions related to alleged illegal logging were also reported in Panyume Payam (Radio Tamazuj, 2024). The clashes between the SPLA-IO/National Salvation Front (NAS) and the SSPDF. Currently, the SSPDF and SPLA-IO/NAS are contesting Panyume Payam.
Administration & Logistics
Payams: Kimba (County Headquarters), Gulumbi, Lujulo, Panyume, Wudabi
UN OCHA 2020 map of MoroboCounty: https://reliefweb.int/map/south-sudan/south-sudan-morobo-county-reference-map-march-2020
Main roads:
- One primary and one tertiary road connect Morobo town to Yei Town to its north, and the primary road also links Morobo town to Kaya town on the Ugandan border to the southeast. The Logistics Cluster has not documented the condition of these roads during the rainy season of 2022, the dry season of 2023, or the dry season of 2025. A number of security incidents have been reported along the Yei-Kaya Road in recent years.
- Conditions on the tertiary road – which runs west from Morobo town and then north toward Yei – are also unknown.
UNHAS-recognised Heli and Fixed-Wing Airplane Airstrips: None
References
Africa Confidential. (1999). Gas mask. Retrieved 7 October 2023.
Africa Confidential. (2017). No let-up in southern fighting. Retrieved 6 October 2023.
Cordaid. (2016). Mining in South Sudan: Opportunities and Risks for Local Communities. Retrieved 13 July 2023.
de Bion, D. (2020). SPLM/SPLA: History of Liberation (1983-2005). Africa World Books, Perth.
de Vries, L. (2012). Facing Frontiers Everyday practice of state-building in South Sudan. Doctoral thesis, Wageningen University. Retrieved 6 October 2023.
Eye Radio. (2022). Three bandits gunned down along Yei-Kaya road. Retrieved 6 October 2023.
FEWSNET. (2018). Livelihoods Zone Map and Descriptions for the Republic of South Sudan (Updated). Retrieved 10 July 2023.
Global Rights Compliance. (2022). No Choice but to Flee: Starvation and Displacement in Central Equatoria, South Sudan. Retrieved 13 July 2023.
Gurtong. (2016). DRC Ambassador Meets Yei Governor to Discuss Cross Border Dispute. Retrieved 13 July 2023 (via Wayback Machine).
Hoffman, I., Blum, L., Kern, L. Mewes, E., & Oelmann, R. (2012). Achieving Food Security in a Post Conflict Context Recommendations for a Farmer Field School Approach in the Greenbelt of South Sudan. SLE Publication Series – S253. Retrieved 10 March 2025.
IOM. (2019). IOM condemns the killing of aid workers amidst deteriorating security situation in Morobo County. Retrieved 13 July 2023.
OCHA. (2019). Humanitarian Needs Overview: South Sudan 2020. Retrieved 10 July 2023.
Radio Tamazuj. (2022). Over 1,000 people flee Morobo County villages following SPLA-IO attacks. Retrieved 6 October 2023.
Radio Tamazuj. (2024). Local authorities demand release of 3 youths detained by SPLA-IO in Morobo. Retrieved 16 April 2024.
REACH. (2020). Integrated Needs Tracking (INT) County Profile – Morobo County. Retrieved 13 July 2023
REACH. (2022). Integrated Needs Tracking (INT) County Profiles. Retrieved 13 July 2023
Reporters Without Borders. (2023). South Sudan: Long overdue investigation into killing of journalist Christopher Allen is insufficient to deliver justice. Retrieved 6 October 2023.
UNSC. (2022). Situation in South Sudan: Report of the Secretary-General (S/2022/918). Retrieved 6 October 2023.
VOA. (2019). Five Civilians Killed in South Sudan: Government, Rebels Trade Blame. Retrieved 13 July 2023
Reports on Morobo
Boswell, A. (2021). Conflict and Crisis in South Sudan’s Equatoria. Retrieved 13 July 2023.
Cordaid. (2016). Mining in South Sudan: Opportunities and Risks for Local Communities. Retrieved 13 July 2023.
de Vries, L. (2013). Pulling the ropes: Convenient indeterminacies and the negotiation of power at Kaya’s border checkpoint. In The Borderlands of South Sudan (pp. 153–172). Palgrave Macmillan, New York.
de Vries, L. and Schomerus, M. (2014). Improvising border security: ‘A situation of security pluralism’ along South Sudan’s borders with the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Security Dialogue, 45(3), 279 –294. Retrieved 13 July 2023.
Global Rights Compliance. (2022). No Choice but to Flee: Starvation and Displacement in Central Equatoria, South Sudan. Retrieved 13 July 2023.
IOM. (2013). Village Assessment Survey: County Atlas. Retrieved 21 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 details on this and other sources used in the county profiles, see the accompanying Methodological Note.
