Panyijiar County, Unity State

Demographics

2008 NBS Census population: 50,723

2021 NBS PES population estimate*: 189,209

2022 UN OCHA population estimate*: 120,261

2024 UN OCHA population estimate*: 139208

2024 IPC population estimate: 123,869

2025 UN OCHA population estimate*: 126,239

Ethnic groups: Nyuong Nuer (Luok, Thaak, Nyal, Cieng-Teny)

Displacement Figures as of September 2024: 26,365 IDPs (+1,524 Sept. 2023) and 14,187 returnees ( -6,135 Sept. 2023)

IPC Food Security: November 2024 – Crisis (Phase 3); IPC Projections: December to March 2025 – Crisis (Phase 3); April to July 2023 – Emergency (Phase 4)

Economy & Livelihoods

Panyijiar County is located in the far south of Unity State. It borders Mayendit County to the north-west and Leer County to the northeast. It also borders Jonglei State across the Nile to the east, and Lakes State to the west and south.

The county forms part of the Nile-Sobat Rivers livelihood zone. The majority of Panyijiar County’s eastern portion falls within the Sudd wetlands. The geography is characterized by green vegetation (including papyrus, reeds and elephant grass), black cotton soils and wetland features on the east side. On the west side, the county is characterized by sandy clay soil and rolling scrubland. The Moch River runs across Panyijiar County’s southeastern portion. During the rainy season, parts of the county are often flooded, including areas near the Moch River, its southwest corner and its eastern edge, which borders the Supiri River.

Residents traditionally engage in cattle-keeping, agriculture and fishing as their predominant means of livelihoods. A 2013 IOM assessment found that the livelihood practices include 34% farming, 34% livestock rearing, and 30% fishing. Recent FAO/WFP data indicates that gross cereal yields were at 0.6 tonnes per hectare in 2022, though there is no updated information on the percentage of households engaged in farming in Panyijiar (FAO/WFP 2022; FAO/WFP 2023). Crops include sorghum, maize, groundnut and cowpeas, with vegetables (such as okra, pumpkin, tomatoes) being cultivated on a smaller scale.

In addition to cattle, residents also raise goats and sheep. Herds are moved towards the Nile and south on the borders with Lakes State from February to April, returning to their regular locations in May. Panyijiar County’s swamps and rivers provide opportunities for fishing. Sales of natural resources such as grass, reeds, charcoal and firewood help supplement the income of some households. One location of note is Taiyar, an island port on Lake Jorr where Dinka and Nuer traders operated side-by-side before the 2013 conflict. It is a key trading hub for Lakes and Jonglei State goods into southern Unity.

A 2019 market study revealed that communities in Panyijiar traditionally relied on community structures to obtain resources such as food when food and economic insecurity were prevalent (Mercy Corps 2019). However, as resources have been depleted due to ongoing insecurity, traders are becoming more stringent in working with customers who are able to engage in cash-based transactions. As a result, people in the county have increasingly relied on humanitarian aid to support their households.

Food insecurity has been a consistent problem in the county, with the county’s IDP population being particularly affected. By 2017, the county was at risk of experiencing famine similar to neighbouring Leer County, due to hindered access for humanitarian organizations to provide food distributions. Since then, the return of humanitarian organizations and increased humanitarian interventions in the area have increased access to food. However, Panyijiar continues to experience crisis levels (IPC level 3) of food insecurity in a November 2024 IPC projection, and these levels were predicted to continue through March 2025 before deteriorating to emergency (IPC level 4) levels in April to July 2025. During both the latter months of 2022 and throughout the first two quarters of 2023 at least 25% of households in Panyijiar were expected to meet between 25% and 50% of their caloric needs from humanitarian food assistance.

Infrastructure & Services

The county headquarters is located in Panyijiar in what is sometimes known locally as Chuk Payam. The Nile River and its swamps are the main transport routes for commercial goods and human mobility in and out of Panyijiar County. Development has been hindered by both the functional remoteness of the area and decades of conflict.

Panyijiar County is home to thirty-one (31) Early Childhood Development centres, fifty-seven (57) primary schools, and four (4) secondary schools: Ganyliel Secondary and Mary Peter Secondary in Ganyliel Payam and, Nyal Secondary in Nyal, and Panyijiar Secondary in Khol Payam. School infrastructure in the county was badly affected by the government decision to stop financially supporting schools located in opposition areas during the South Sudanese civil war.

In December 2024, the WHO reported that Panyijiar County had thirty-seven (37) health facilities, of which twenty-one (21) were functional. These functional facilities included eighteen (18) primary health care units (PHCUs), three (3) primary health care centres (PHCCs), and no (0) hospitals. This means there were approximately 2.14 PHCUs per 15,000 people and 1.19 PHCCs per 50,000 people in the county at that time. The destruction of facilities during the conflict and widespread displacement significantly reduced access to healthcare.

According to OCHA’s 2025 Humanitarian Needs Overview, there are an estimated 91,591 people in need in Panyijiar County, which represents approximately 73% of the county’s total population reported by OCHA for 2025. For comparison, in 2024, OCHA reported that there were an estimated 97,216 people in need in Panyijiar County, of whom 64,488 were non-displaced people, with the remainder comprising IDPs and returnees. According to OCHA’s Humanitarian Needs Overview for 2023, there were 96,208 people in Panyijiar County with humanitarian needs (compared to 93,700 in 2021), which represented 80% of the estimated population for the county reported in the HNO that year. Needs have for many years been particularly severe in the areas of protection and child protection, and as Oxfam noted in 2019, 71% of girls are married before the age of 18.

Panyijiar County received a significant influx of IDPs during the onset of fighting in 2013, particularly to Ganyliel town, Nyal town, and their surrounding islands. By the end of December 2015, an estimated 2,500-3,500 IDPs were living in the swamps northeast of Nyal town alone. For example, by June 2014, local authorities say approximately 2,000 IDPs from Panyijiar had arrived in Rumbek Centre County. The two communities reportedly had good relations historically, although cattle raids from Lakes State have been reported. In 2015, IDPs fleeing from the fighting in Mayendit and Leer arrived in Panyijiar, placing additional stress on existing infrastructure and services.

In 2021, Panyijiar was recognized as a flood-affected county by the Emergency Response Coordination Centre. The slow recession of the 2020 floodwaters coupled with the onset of seasonal rainfall in July 2021 led to flooding that affected at least 31,245 people. The flooding destroyed livelihoods, shelter, markets, and infrastructure while worsening the already precarious humanitarian situation. During the past four years, severe floods have continued to affect residents of Payijiar, leading to poor crop harvests and the depletion of livestock. By 2023 and inter-agency assessment reported that a majority of survey respondents (69%) said that WFP general food distributions provided their main source of food (IRNA 2023).

Conflict Dynamics

Panyijiar County, sharing its southern and western border with Lakes State, has been a longstanding site for both violence and cooperation between neighbouring Dinka and Nuer communities. The county has historically experienced insecurity as a result of cattle raiding, disputes over access to water and land for grazing animals, as well as the high proliferation of small arms along the borders due to decades of militarization of cattle keeping communities within the context of the Sudanese and South Sudanese civil wars. During the second Sudanese civil war (1983-2005), the border region between southern Unity and Greater Yirol in Lakes State became increasingly insecure following the 1991 split in the SPLM/A. Cattle raiding linked to parts of the Nuer community from southern Unity State into Greater Yirol increased in the mid-1990s, with the SPLM/A faction under the command of John Garang responding by distributing arms to local gelweng (cattle guards) in Greater Yirol (Ryle and Amuom 2018, p.79). Whilst relations between the communities Yirol East and Panyijiar have become fraught during periods of raiding, the communities have also provided relief and sanctuary to one another, and have common ties through trading and marriage. These linkages have helped limit the severity of conflict during the recent civil war, as is discussed below (Santchsi and Ninrew 2023, p.19).

Raiding between elements of the Dinka and Nuer communities increased after 2010, with raids from parts of the Dinka Agar community (from the Greater Rumbek area) into Panyijiar escalating between 2011 and 2013. Despite a peace conference in September 2012 resulting in pledges from officials and traditional leaders from Warrap, Lakes, and Unity states to end cattle raiding (Sudan Tribune 2012), violent raids continued. In early 2023, cattle raiders who were alleged to hail from southern Unity raided Rumbek North and Rumbek Centre counties, resulting in serious clashes (Sudan Tribune 2013a; Sudan Tribune 2013b).

During the early stages of the national conflict (2013-2018), Panyijiar was an opposition stronghold and accordingly was subjected to a number of government offensives in 2014 and 2015 (including around the time signing of the 2015 ARCSS agreement in late August 2015). Panyijiar is part of the group of southern Unity counties from which the SPLA-IO has drawn support, with Nuer cattle guards (referred to as ‘gojam’) working alongside SPLA-IO forces to resist government offensives, and the area providing recruits for the opposition from late 2014. Militias from Lakes State were reported to have been involved in the SPLA’s February 2014 offensive, and in the military’s major April 2015 offensive that reached Panyijiar in May. The use of Lakes State as a staging ground for military operations – alongside the theft of cattle by irregular forces from parts of Lake State’s Dinka communities – had the effect of ending the tacit non-aggression pact between Panyijiar and neighbouring Dinka areas (Craze et al. 2016, p.58, pp.81-86). However, trade was maintained between some Dinka traders and Nuer civilians and opposition forces in Panyijiar, including from the Yirol area, whilst some displaced Nuer found sanctuary in Lakes State.

During the early 2015 offensive, the SPLA destroyed the port of Tayer and attacked Nyal town, alongside 28 villages in Panyijiar (several of which were torched) (Craze et al. 2016, pp.84-86). The SPLA could only move with difficulty in Panyijiar, and the county was the only one in southern Unity which the SPLM–IO immediately retook. Due to the swampy conditions and its remote location, Panyijiar also provided a safe haven to communities fleeing insecurity in Unity. In late 2015, Panyijiar hosted displaced persons fleeing fighting in Leer and Mayendit counties (Small Arms Survey 2016).

While large-scale offensives abated after 2015, tensions at the sub-clan level alongside leadership disputes have presented challenges to the SPLA-IO’s ability to govern the area. For example, the county commissioner appointed as part of the 2020 R-TGONU was rejected by the community and the SPLA-IO in the area in favour of local candidates (Radio Tamazuj 2021a). This pushed the appointing authority to replace him with a candidate who had more grassroots support. The resulting power vacuum was alleged to have contributed to an escalation in localised violence in mid-2021 between some Nuer youths from Panyijiar and some Dinka youths from neighbouring Rumbek Centre County, although these have also been exacerbated by grievances established during the civil war and more recent tit-for-tat attacks (Radio Tamazuj 2021b). Prior to this, cattle raiders (alleged to be from the Nyuong Nuer community) escalated raids into Greater Yirol in 2017 and 2018 (Ryle and Amuom 2018, pp.77-81). Raiding has also occurred in the border area between Yirol East and Panyijiar in 2021 and 2022, which has also involved clashes between raiders and security forces who pursued them into Panyijiar (Eye Radio 2022). Cross-border raiding and insecurity were reduced (though not eliminated) as a result of peace conferences in May 2018 and in late 2022, whose implementation has been facilitated by national NGOs. Progress has been made in establishing co-operative between authorities in the two counties, including exchanges of stolen cattle (Santchsi and Ninrew 2023, p.8).

Low-level insecurity and cross-border raiding has continued intermittently during 2023, including an incident in February when Nyuong youth clashed with SPLA-IO forces in Ganyiel Payam in unclear circumstances. More recently, cross-border raiding into Panyijiar from Lakes State has been reported in early 2024, while bodyguards of the Panyijiar County Commissioner who were escorting a humanitarian vehicle were reportedly attacked after they crossed into Rumbek Centre County (Sudans Post 2024).

Administration & Logistics

Payams: Panyijiar (County HQ), Ganyiel, Kol, Mayom, Nyal, Pachaar, Pachak, Pachienjok, Thoarnhoum, Tiap

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

Roads:

• Two secondary roads running south-east from Mayendit County meet in western Panyijiar County, before continuing to Rumbek town in Rumbek Centre County (Lakes State) to. The road was designated impassable within Panyijiar County in both the rainy season of 2024 and dry season of 2025, though was “passable with difficulties” within Rumbek Centre County during the same time period.

• A tertiary road network covers parts of the south-east of the county, extending into Yirol East County in Lakes State. The condition of these roads is unknown.

• A river route runs north-south in eastern areas of the county, connecting Bor to northern areas of Unity, Jonglei and Upper Nile states, with ports serving the inland towns of Ganyiel (at Taiyar) and Nyal.

UNHAS-Recognized Heli-Landing Sites and Airstrips: Ganyliel, Nyal

References

Craze, J., Tubiana, J., and Grammizi, C. (2016). A State of Disunity: Conflict Dynamics in Unity State, South Sudan, 2013–15. Small Arms Survey/HSBA. Retrieved 6 December 2023.

Eye Radio. (2022). Panyijiar security forces kill 3 rustlers, recover 25 stolen cattle. Retrieved 7 December 2023.

FAO/WFP. (2023). Special Report: FAO/WFP Crop and Food Security Assessment Mission to South Sudan. Retrieved 31 July 2023. See equivalent versions of the CFSAM report online for data from previous years.

FEWSNET. (2018). ‘Livelihoods Zone Map and Descriptions for the Republic of South Sudan (Updated)’. Retrieved 16 July 2023.

Human Rights Watch. (2015a). ‘“We Can Die Too”: Recruitment and Use of Child Soldiers in South Sudan’. Retrieved 16 July 2023.

Human Rights Watch. (2015b). ‘“They Burned It All”: Destruction of villages, killings and sexual violence in Unity State South Sudan’. Retrieved 16 July 2023.

IRNA. (2023). South Sudan – Inter-Agency Assessment Report, Panyijiar County, Unity State (January 2023). Retrieved 18 March 2025.

IRNA. (2021). ‘Inter-agency Flood Assessment Panyijiar County, Unity State, August 2021’. Retrieved 16 July 2023.

Mercy Corps. (2019). ‘The Currency of Connections: Why Local Support Systems are Integral to Helping People Recover in South Sudan’. Retrieved 16 July 2023.

OCHA (2021). ‘Humanitarian Needs Overview: South Sudan 2021’. Retrieved 16 July 2023.

Oxfam. (2019). ‘Born to be Married: Addressing Early and Forced Marriage in Nyal South Sudan’. Retrieved 16 July 2023.

Radio Tamazuj. (2021a). ‘SPLM-IO nominated commissioner of Panyijiar County rejected by community’. Retrieved 16 July 2023.

Radio Tamazuj. (2021b). ‘8 people killed in Lakes State cattle raid’. Retrieved 16 July 2023.

Ryle, J. and Amuom, M. (2018). Peace is the Name of Our Cattle-Camp. Rift Valley Institute. Retrieved 18 July 2023.

Santchsi, M. and Ninrew, J. (2023). Working together for peace: Lessons learned from supporting local conflict prevention & resolution. Swisspeace. Retrieved 6 November 2023.

Small Arms Survey. (2016). The Conflict in Unity State: Describing events through 23 February 2016. Retrieved 7 December 2023.

Sudans Post. (2024). Two killed in attack on Panyijiar County bodyguards in Lakes State. Retrieved 12 April 2024.

Sudan Tribune. (2012). Lakes, Unity and Warrap vowe [SIC] to end cattle raiding. Retrieved 7 December 2023.

Sudan Tribune. (2013a). Four killed in Rumbek North cattle raid. Retrieved 7 December 2023.

Sudan Tribune. (2013b). Unity state condemns women’s abduction in cattle raid. Retrieved 7 December 2023.

Reports on Panyijiar

Dragicevic, H. (2017). ‘Everything except the soil: understanding wild food consumption during the lean season in South Sudan’. Retrieved 16 July 2023.

Foreign Policy. (2016). ‘“They Will Find Us and Kill Us”: From murder to mass rape, a special report from the front lines of South Sudan’s civil war (Nyal)’. Retrieved 16 July 2023.

Humphrey, A., Krishnan, V., & Krystalli, R. (2019). ‘The Currency of Connections: Why local support systems are integral to helping people recover in South Sudan’.  Mercy Corps and Tufts University. Retrieved 16 July 2023.

Mercy Corps. (2014). ‘The story of Ganyiel: A safe hiding place’. Retrieved 16 July 2023.

Oxfam. (2019). ‘How a canoe program is saving lives and livelihoods in South Sudan (Nyal)’. Retrieved 16 July 2023.

Santschi, M. and Ninrew, J. (2023). ‘Working together for peace: Lessons learned from supporting local conflict prevention & resolution’. Swisspeace. Retrieved 16 July 2023.

UNICEF. (2016). Social Map – Payinjiar County. Retrieved 17 March 2025.

* 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.