Mundri West County, Western Equatoria State

DEMOGRAPHY

2008 NBS Census population: 33,975
2021 NBS PES population estimate*: 52,385
2022 UN OCHA population estimate*: 49,763

Ethnic groups: Moru, ‘Jur Beli’/Bel, Mundu, Moru/Moro Kodo**

Displacement Figures Q3 2022: 1,324 IDPs (-4,945 Q1 2020) and 22,440 returnees (+10,417 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 West is located in Western Equatoria State. It borders Mvolo County to the north, Mundri East County to the east, and Maridi County to the west. It also borders Central Equatoria State (Yei, Lainya and Juba Counties) to the south.

The county is categorized as part of the equatorial maize and cassava livelihoods zone (FEWSNET 2018). As a part of South Sudan’s lush greenbelt zone, almost 60% of the population is estimated to practice agriculture as their primary livelihood (FAO/WFP 2018). This estimate had increased to 70% by 2021 (FAO/WFP 2022). The main crops grown in Mundri West are sorghum, sesame (simsim), cassava, sweet potatoes, groundnuts, vegetables, maize, millet and rice. Fishing is also a viable livelihood activity in Mundri West. Gross cereal yields were estimated to be 1.0 tonnes per hectare in 2021, increasing to 1.2 tonnes per hectare in 2022 (FAO/WFP 2022; FAO/WFP 2023).

In November 2022, Mundri West 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 REACH assessment conducted in Q3 2020 found that residents in all settlements reported having physical access to a functional market . While this mirrors the relatively stable food security conditions of Western Equatoria compared to the rest of the country, the impact of erratic rainfall, flooding, supply-chain shortages and insecurity continue to pose a threat to the community resilience. Additionally, destruction of crops and displacement resulting from sustained clashes since 2015 has made it challenging for farmers to ensure land-access during key periods of planting and harvesting. In June 2021, residents of Gulu and Mbara Bomas relocated to Mundri Town as a result of insecurity and a lack of basic services.

INFRASTRUCTURE AND SERVICES

The county’s headquarters is located in Mundri town in Mundri Payam. The county HQ also hosts a large market at the intersection of roads to Rumbek, Yambio and Juba, that serves much of the state. The spread of the civil war to Mundri West from 2016 led to continued clashes in the county which destroyed much of the county’s infrastructure and services, including schools, healthcare facilities and water sources. Insecurity in the area has impacted trade and transportation routes which pass through the county, leading to unpredictable closures of the main trading roads, thereby limiting the ability to maintain and rehabilitate the critical infrastructure and services that the county’s residents rely on.

Mundri West County is home to twenty-four (24) Early Childhood Development centres, forty-nine (49) primary schools and six (6) secondary schools. Five (5) secondary schools are located in Mundri payam while Kotobi Secondary is located in its namesake payam.

Mundri West County was reported to have twenty-three (23) health facilities, nineteen (19) of which were reported to be functional. Among them are seventeen (17) PHCUs and two (2) PHCCs in 2022. This means that there were an estimated 5.13 PHCUs per 15,000 people and 2.01 PHCCs per 50,000 people according to the WHO, which ranks Mundri West as among the ten counties with the highest ratios of PHCUs/person in South Sudan. No hospitals were reported in Mundri West County.

According to OCHA’s Humanitarian Needs Overview for 2023, 25,016 people in the county have humanitarian needs, which represents approximately 52% of the estimated population for Mundri West County reported in the HNO. Recurrent conflict has displaced some residents up to ten times during the civil war (REACH 2019). While Mundri West was not as impacted by flooding in 2021, it was significantly affected in 2020. A September 2020 IRNA found that a total of 22,196 individuals (3,699 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

While the majority of people living in Mundri West are agriculturalists, its status as a lush, well-watered greenbelt county and proximity to pastoralist communities in Central Equatoria and Lakes State have historically resulted in perennial communal conflict over land and water access for cattle herds. Even at the time of independence, armed Dinka cattle-keepers were observed to have settled in Kotobi Payam of Mundri West, despite having been asked to return to their place of origin in Lakes State (NP 2011). 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 West County.

The movement of cattle to Mundri West County escalated significantly from 2015 onwards, with communal clashes between nomadic Dinka cattle keepers and agro-pastoralist communities indigenous to Mundri West 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). In May 2015, the County Executive Director of Mundri West was killed, in the midst of growing insecurity in the area, as well as increased tensions between civilians and the SPLA (IOM 2016). Government forces assigned to the area were accused of stealing locally grown crops, household items, as well as destroying homes, which led to increased displacement in the area. The increase in government forces in the area in early 2016 led to the further displacement of Mundri West residents, some of who had only just returned after the previous year’s conflict.

In 2017, continued clashes between opposition and government forces along Faraksika-Mundri and Jambo-Kemande roads led to significant displacement of civilians from Mundri West to relative safe havens in Yei and Lanyia counties (REACH 2019). By mid-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.

While the signing of the R-ARCSS in late 2018 brought relative stability and increased numbers of returnees to Mundri West, fighting between the SPLA/SSPDF and the National Salvation Front (NAS), who were not party to the 2018 peace deal, have led to localized displacement and increased perceptions of instability. The NAS accused the SPLA/SSPDF and SPLA-IO of further attacks on its bases in Mundri West in May 2020 (Radio Tamazuj 2020).

ADMINISTRATION & LOGISTICS

Payams: Mundri (County Headquarters), Amadi, Bangolo/Bangulu, Kotobi

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

Roads:

• A primary road running east from Mundri town 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 Mundri 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.
• This primary road forks at Liyoba village, running north to Rumbek town via Mvolo County. This road was deemed passable during both the rainy and dry seasons of 2022 and 2023, respectively.
• A tertiary road runs south from Kotobi village to Makhogani village in the south of Mundri West County. The condition of the road is unknown.

UNHAS-recognized Heli-Landing Sites and Airstrips: Mundri

REFERENCES

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.

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

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

Radio Tamazuj. (2020). NAS accuses SSPDF, SPLA-IO of military offensives in Mundri West. 25 May 2020. Retrieved 15 July 2023.

REACH. (2019). Mundri West Displacement and Service Access Brief. Retrieved 15 July 2023.

REACH. (2020). Integrated Needs Tracking (INT) County Profile – Mundri West 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.

UNMISS. (2020). UNMISS Set to Mitigate Water Shortages in Mundri Caused by Returnees Attracted by Peace. Retrieved 15 July 2023.

REPORTS on MUNDRI WEST

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.

IOM. (2016). IOM DTM Mundri West County Displacement Overview. 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.

** Note: The Moru Kodo should not be confused with the Moru, who have a distinct language and culture. The former have historically settled in Maridi, Mundri West and Mvolo, and their name is variously described as ‘Moru Kodo’, ‘Moro Kodo’, ‘Morokodo’ or ‘Kodo Kodo’.