Mundri East County, Western Equatoria State

DEMOGRAPHY

2008 NBS Census population: 48,318
2021 NBS PES population estimate*: 80,189
2022 UN OCHA population estimate*: 100,275

Ethnic groups: Moru, Moro Kodo, Mundu

Displacement Figures Q3 2022: 4,515 IDPs (-17,342 Q1 2020) and 30,615 returnees (+12,965 Q1 2020)

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

ECONOMY & LIVELIHOODS

Mundri East County is located in Western Equatoria State. It borders Mundri West County to the west and Mvolo County to the north-west. It also borders Central Equatoria State (Terekeka and Juba Counties) to the northeast and southeast.

The county falls within South Sudan’s greenbelt zone and is defined as an equatorial maize and cassava livelihoods zone (FEWSNET 2018), with an estimated 45% of households engaging in agriculture (FAO/WFP 2018). This estimate had increased to 60% by 2021 (FAO/WFP 2022). Common crops grown in the area include sorghum, millet, cassava, sweet potatoes, maize, beans, pumpkins, okra, tomatoes, groundnuts and sesame (simsim), with animal husbandry of goats, sheep, chicken, ducks and some cattle occurring on a subsistence scale. Gross cereal yields were estimated to be 1.15 tonnes per hectare in 2021, declining to 1.0 tonne per hectare in 2022 (FAO/WFP 2022; FAO/WFP 2023).

Mundri East’s proximity to other states with large pastoralist communities means that during the dry season, when grazing land and water sources become scarcer in other parts of the country, armed cattle-keeping groups (mainly from Lakes and Central Equatoria) migrate towards the area. This had led to clashes over local resources including land and water, both of which are critical to agricultural and cattle-keeping livelihoods.

In November 2022, Mundri East County was determined to be experiencing Crisis (IPC Phase 3) levels of food insecurity. This is predicted to be maintained until at least July 2023.  A 2020 REACH assessment found that residents in all settlements reported having access to a functional market. Livelihoods and food security in Mundri East have been impacted by a variety of cyclical and structural factors including climate change and unpredictable rain. This – combined with the financial crisis in South Sudan and growing insecurity in the area peaking in 2015 and late 2019 – led to market shortages and a lack of basic staples and foodstuffs, with several markets ceasing to function altogether.

INFRASTRUCTURE AND SERVICES

The county headquarters are located in Kediba Town in Kediba Payam. The infrastructure and services available in Mundri East have been impacted by ongoing insecurity, low rainfall, as well as instability along major trade and transportation routes that pass through the area, namely the Jambo-Kemande road linking Jambo and Lui. As a result, there were widespread market closures, and food insecurity increased. Increased stability in 2019 led to improved access for humanitarian organizations and commercial vehicles. MTN and Zain were reported to be functional throughout the county in 2020.

Mundri East is home to nine (9) Early Childhood Development centres, forty-four and (44) primary schools and two (2) secondary schools, including Lui Girls National Secondary school located in Lozoh Payam, a co-educational institution.

Mundri East County was reported to have twenty-one (21) health facilities, all of which were reported to be functional. Among them are seventeen (17) PHCUs, three (3) PHCCs and one (1) hospital in 2022. This means that there were an estimated 2.55 PHCUs per 15,000 people and 1.50 PHCCs per 50,000 people according to the WHO. Lui Hospital was reported to be moderately functional.

According to OCHA’s Humanitarian Needs Overview for 2023, over 59,658 people in the county have humanitarian needs (down from around 62,100 in 2021), which represents 59% of the estimated population for Mundri East County reported in the HNO. In 2021, Mundri East was identified as one of five counties which experienced high access constraints in 2020 related to active hostilities, violence against humanitarian personnel as well as the physical environment. Part of the access restraints include the high levels of ERW and landmine contamination, with Mundri East identified as one of eight Equatorian counties experiencing significant contamination issues.

While Mundri East was not as impacted by flooding in 2021, it was significantly affected in 2020. A September 2020 IRNA found that a total of 12,516 individuals (2,086 households) were displaced by the flooding. IDPs were found to have reduced access to food, a lack of safe and clean drinking water and sanitation, to be living in unhygienic conditions in overcrowded settlements and to be engaging in negative coping strategies such as skipped days between eating.

CONFLICT DYNAMICS

The location of Mundri East has made it a key location for cattle-keeping groups that migrate to the area during the dry season (often from Lakes and northern Central Equatoria) when water sources are sparse in their regions. These movements contributed to the growth of community defence groups known as ‘arrow boys’ in Western Equatoria in the period following the CPA in 2005. At various points in time the ‘arrow boys’ collaborated with and substituted for the army, state and central government, including in Mundri East County.

The outbreak of civil war in December 2013 saw fighting in neighbouring states and the spread of new diseases drive cattle-keeping nomadic communities from Jonglei and Lakes States into Mundri East County in increasing numbers. These movements escalated significantly from 2015 onwards, with communal clashes between nomadic Dinka cattle keepers from Lakes State and agro-pastoralist communities indigenous to Mundri East leading to a period of sustained insecurity and displacement. In this context, the ‘arrow boys’ became absorbed into the conflict and seen as an important mechanism to protect against attacks from both pastoralist groups and perceived mistreatment by the SPLA (Schomerus and Taban 2017). The presence of SPLA soldiers in the area further heightened tensions in Mundri East from 2015 through 2018. These clashes led to increased displacement both within Mundri East, as well as to neighboring counties. The most affected areas in Mundri East include Kediba, Lanyi, Buogyi, Jambo, Lozoh, Minga and Lakamadi. Some community members in Mundri East/West reportedly fear that such violence and displacement will lead to their longer term eviction from their farmland (De Vries and Schomerus 2017).

Intense fighting took place again in Kediba and Lozoh in mid-February 2016 when fighting between SPLA and armed groups over the town center resulted in significant damage to crops, housing, and storage facilities (IOM 2016). Lozoh and Lakamadi payams both house significant displaced populations (5,928 and 3,116 respectively in April 2016) and were under the control of armed groups in opposition to the government. By 2017, the ‘arrow boys’ in Mundri as elsewhere had been mostly either demobilized, absorbed into new formal armed groups that arose in Western Equatoria, defeated or intimidated into submission by groups with access to greater resources and firepower. As the area stabilized in 2019, residents have increasingly returned to the area, as evidenced by the high proportion of returnees documented compared to the overall estimated population (REACH 2019).

ADMINISTRATION & LOGISTICS

Payams listed in Government and UN documents: Kedi’ba (County Headquarters), Lakamadi, Lozoh, Ming(a), Witto
Additional payams listed by local actors: Lui 

UN OCHA 2020 map for Mundri East County: https://reliefweb.int/map/south-sudan/south-sudan-mundri-east-county-reference-map-march-2020

Roads:

• A primary road running east from Lui to Juba was deemed passable by the Logistics Cluster in both the rainy and dry seasons of 2022 and 2023, respectively. The same road runs west to Wau via Yambio. In the rainy season of 2022, this road was deemed passable between Lui and Maridi, and then ‘passable with difficulties’ west of Maridi up to Wau. In the dry season of 2023, the entirety of the road was considered passable between Juba and Tambura, and ‘passable with difficulties’ between Tambura and Wau.
• A secondary road connects the county to Lainya town in Central Equatoria via a spur at Jambo town. Seasonal road conditions are unknown.
• A secondary road runs through the northernmost part of the county to Terekeka town in Central Equatoria State, becoming a tertiary road at Tali in Terekeka County. This road was deemed passable during both the rainy and dry seasons of 2022 and 2023, respectively.
• A tertiary road runs East-West across the county to Tindalo in Terekeka County (Central Equatoria State) via Kediba town. Seasonal road conditions are unknown.

 UNHAS-Recognized Heli-Landing Sites and Airstrips: None

REFERENCES

De Vries, L. and Schomerus, M. (2017). South Sudan’s Civil War Will Not End with a Peace Deal. Retrieved 15 July 2023.

FAO/WFP. (2023). South Sudan 2022 Crop and Food Security Assessment Mission (CFSAM) Summary of findings. Retrieved 10 July 2023.

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

IOM. (2016). IOM DTM Mundri West County Displacement Overview. Retrieved 15 July 2023.

IRNA. (2020). Floods Fact Finding Mission Report Mundri West and Mundri East Counties, Western Equatoria, September 2020. Retrieved 15 July 2023.

REACH. (2020). Integrated Needs Tracking (INT) County Profile – Mundri East County. Retrieved 15 July 2023.

Schomerus, M. and Taban, C. (2017). ‘Arrow boys, armed groups and the SPLA: intensifying insecurity in the Western Equatorian states’. Chapter 2 in ‘Informal Armies: Community defence groups in South Sudan’s civil war’, Saferworld. Retrieved 15 July 2023.

Small Arms Survey. (2016). Conflict in Western Equatoria: Describing events through 17 July 2016. Retrieved 15 July 2023.

Voice of America. (2021). South Sudan in Focus 22 October 2021. Retrieved 15 July 2023.

REPORTS on MUNDRI EAST

Boswell, A. (2017). Spreading Fallout: The Collapse of the ARCSS and New Conflict along the Equatorias-DRC border. Retrieved 15 July 2023.

Boswell, Alan. (2019). Do local peace deals work? Evidence from South Sudan’s civil war. Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung. Retrieved 15 July 2023.

ICG (International Crisis Group). (2016). South Sudan’s South: Conflict in the Equatorias. Retrieved 15 July 2023.

Kindersley, N. and Øystein, R. (2017). Civil War on Shoestring: Rebellion in South Sudan’s Equatoria Region. Retrieved 15 July 2023.

Spencer, P. S., et. Al. (2013). Nodding syndrome in Mundri county, South Sudan: environmental, nutritional and infectious factors. African Health Sciences, 13(2), 183-204. Retrieved 15 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.