Tonj North County, Warrap State

DEMOGRAPHY

2008 NBS Census population: 165,222
2021 NBS PES population estimate*: 651,354
2022 UN OCHA population estimate*: 263,544

Ethnic groups: Rek Dinka (Noi/Leer, Abiem/Abiem Mayar, Atok, Nyang Akoc; Apuk-Padoc, Awan Parek, Kongor, Lou-Ariik, Lou-Paher)**

Displacement Figures Q3 2022: 46,609 IDPs (-35,005 Q1 2020) and 31,749 returnees (+24,948 Q1 2020)

IPC Food Security: November 2022 – Emergency (Phase 4); IPC Projections: December 2022 to March 2023 – Emergency (Phase 4); April to July 2023 – Emergency (Phase 4)

ECONOMY & LIVELIHOODS

Tonj North is located in Warrap State. It borders Tonj East County to the southeast, Tonj South County to the south, and Gogrial East County to the north-west. It also borders Unity State (Mayom, Koch and Mayendit counties) to the east and Western Bahr el-Ghazal State (Jur River County) to the south-west.

The county is situated in the western floodplains sorghum and cattle livelihoods zone (FEWSNET 2018). It is the largest county in Warrap State and stretches from Western Bahr el-Ghazal State in the west to Unity State in the east. The landscape is characterized by flat grassland and tropical savannah. A recent study indicates that 70% of households engage in agriculture (FAO/WFP 2018) declining to 60% by 2021 (FAO/WFP 2022). Planting is conducted during the rainy season and the main crops are sorghum, sesame, millet, groundnuts, peas, okra and pumpkin. In 2021 and 2022, gross cereal yields were estimated to be 0.7 tonnes per hectare (FAO/WFP 2023). Fishing is also a key livelihood in the county, and dry fish is exported to markets such as Wau.

Livestock ownership is widespread in Tonj North with a 2020 REACH assessment finding only 6% of settlements where residents do not possess or have access to livestock.  Although livestock ownership has fluctuated in recent years due conflict-related raids, disease outbreaks, and flooding, as well as cattle-sales to mitigate the effects of acute food insecurity (see below), the FAO reported in 2021 that numbers of cattle, goats and sheep were increasing throughout Warrap, including in Tonj North.  Culturally, cattle are highly valued and play an important role in society as a sign of social status and wealth. Pastoralists throughout Tonj North – like others from Tonj South, Abyei and Lakes/Unity States – migrate during the dry season in search of water in various parts of the northeastern and eastern Warrap State. Livelihoods can be disrupted by recurring resource and migration disputes and cattle raiding in conflict-prone payams of Tonj North that border Tonj East County (Kirrik, Rualbet, Marial Lou) and Unity State (Akop and Alebek).

In November 2022, the IPC projected Tonj North County as being at an emergency (IPC level 4) level of food insecurity, with conditions projected to persist at the same level until at least July 2023.Previously, the IPC Global Support Unit released an additional report from the Famine Review Committee indicating that 10% of the Tonj North population was likely experiencing Catastrophe (IPC Phase 5) levels of acute food insecurity in November 2020.

The recent deterioration in food security in Greater Tonj reflects the impact of intensified sub-national violence since 2019, the coercive disarmament campaign of 2020, and the effects of four consecutive years of serious flooding. In the past, the destruction of livelihoods may have been a by-product of conflict rather than an objective. However, in the ongoing cycles of violence in Greater Tonj, asset-stripping and the destruction of assets has increasingly assumed a more central function. Communities may be targeted in order to weaken them; other times groups may loot assets (particularly cattle) in order to sustain themselves or to restock own losses. Persistent insecurity and flooding also had a pronounced effect on cultivation, as many people had their crops stolen, were too scared to cultivate, cultivated early and left, or did not cultivate at all. Conflict-related restrictions on the freedom of movement has also had significant implications. Displacement and conflict have resulted in cattle being kept unusually close to the homestead in the dry season and prevented livestock from using their typical migration paths. Restrictions in mobility furthermore have and are likely to contribute to ongoing violence within and between communities, as access to natural resources remain constrained.

INFRASTRUCTURE AND SERVICES

The county headquarters is in Warrap town in Awul Payam. In recent years, conflict has caused displacement to Warrap Town and Marial Lou, interrupted service provision and disrupted local market functions. The road infrastructure in the county is limited and there are no primary roads within the county. Roads are concentrated around the county headquarters of Warrap town and in the southwestern portion of the county.

Tonj North is home to eighty-one (81) primary schools and three (3) secondary schools including Warrap Secondary and Ghazal International Secondary in Awul Payam, and Marial Lou Secondary in Marial Lou Payam. There are no Early Childhood Development centres operating in Tonj North County.

 Tonj North County was reported to have twenty-one (21) health facilities including eighteen (18) functional health facilities, among them thirteen (13) PHCUs, four (4) PHCCs and one (1) hospital in 2022. This means that there were an estimated 0.68 PHCUs per 15,000 people and 0.76 PHCCs per 50,000 people according to the WHO, which ranks Tonj North as among the ten counties with the lowest ratios of PHCUs/person in South Sudan. Marial Lou Hospital was reported to be moderately functional.

According to OCHA’s Humanitarian Needs Overview for 2023, over 195,300 people have humanitarian needs in Tonj North (up markedly from 166,800 in 2021), which has placed significant pressure on local infrastructure and services. This figure represents approximately 74% of the estimated population for Tonj North County reported in the HNO. Nearly 94,000 of those in need are reported to be IDPs. OCHA identified Tonj North as one of six counties falling into the catastrophic category of GBV risk based on nationwide FSMNS+ assessments.

CONFLICT DYNAMICS

The Greater Tonj area – and particularly the present-day counties of Tonj North and South – has had an outsized impact on Southern Sudanese politics, in part due to a number of influential elites hailing from Tonj. During the second Sudanese civil war (1983-2005), commanders and politicians from Tonj and nearby Gogrial assumed a central role in the SPLM/A, whilst some elites from the area were also aligned to the Sudanese government. Following significant violence and raiding from militias aligned to Khartoum, Tonj town was recaptured by the SPLM/A amid a series of SPLM/A gains in 1997 (Madut-Arop 2006). Since the Comprehensive Peace Agreement of 2005, Rek Dinka elites from the area have become particularly prominent in Juba, though this prominence has not been associated with material gains or improvements in security for many residents of Greater Tonj, with the Small Arms Survey attributing this to a combination of elite discord and insufficient investment in economic or social infrastructure (Craze 2022).

The national conflict (2013-2018) had only limited direct effects for security in Tonj North, with reports of an SPLA-IO incursion in February 2014 (Sudan Tribune 2014), and indications that titweng (cattle guards) repelled SPLA-IO attacks from Unity State in April 2014 (Saferworld 2015). However, since the signing of the R-ARCSS in 2018 Tonj North has witnessed increased militarization and insecurity. These have been connected to alleged recruitment for state security forces, changes in administrative and political representation, and continued deficits in the maintenance of justice and dispute-resolution mechanisms. Notably, the Greater Tonj region experienced an increase in internal violence following the shift from ten states to 28 states in late 2015 (de Waal and Pendle 2019), while a more recent spike in violence in Greater Tonj coincided with the return to ten states in 2020. Administrative reorganisation has been associated with increased competition for administrative control and resources for authorities at various levels. Furthermore, recruitment into multiple security institutions allegedly increased in late 2018 and 2019 following the signing of the R-ARCSS (Boswell 2019, p.13; UN Panel of Experts 2019, p.12). Further recruitment in Tonj North was reported by the Small Arms Survey to have occurred in 2021 and 2022 (Craze 2022, p.39).

Since 2019, conflicts which have the outward appearance of being ‘inter-communal’ have been widely reported in Greater Tonj. This violence is often described using the language of ‘cattle raids’, ‘revenge killings’, ‘land disputes’, or ‘inter-communal violence’, though such descriptors have been questioned by some analysts for offering only a limited consideration of broader political and economic factors associated with these conflicts, which have tended to also limit discussion regarding the actors involved in them or their connections to centres of political power (Craze 2022; Watson 2023). Whilst not all subnational violence or raiding is linked to political interests or agendas, neither does violence in Greater Tonj occur exclusively through revenge attacks or cattle raids involving small groups or individuals. Instead, conflicts work through multiple forms and layers of violence with overlapping objectives among its participants and instigators. What are labelled as instances of ‘communal violence’ have become increasingly difficult to differentiate from other types of social and political violence, with subnational and national elements usually also being at play.

The signing of the R-ARCSS in 2018 heralded a shift in the purpose and organisation of violence in Greater Tonj, with conflict now playing out predominantly at clan, sectional, or sub-sectional levels, reinforcing the impression such violence is ‘communal’ in nature. For example, divisions within elements of the Rek Dinka clan play an important role in Tonj North’s conflict dynamics. In particular, since 2020 high levels of violence have been noted between an alliance of Kuachthii sub-sections from the western part of Tonj North (often collectively referred to as ‘Greater Awul’) and an alliance of sections from the eastern part of Tonj North (often collectively referred to as ‘Greater Akop’). These alliances are reportedly supported by a number of Juba-based elites, and the intervention by security forces on both sides when violence has taken place can lead to major access constraints, particularly in Awuul, Warrap, Rualbet, and Akop payams. Since 2021, internal conflict within the greater Awul community led to the formation of an alliance between members of the Leer Ajak of Kirrik with sections from Greater Akop. Since then, the conflict in Tonj North has largely between the Noi, Atok, and Nyong Akoc sections on the one side, and the Awan Parek, Apuk Padoc, and Leer Ajak on the other.

However, the intensification of sub-national violence among some Dinka sections and sub-sections in Greater Tonj is rarely based exclusively on issues such as perceived differences of identity or scarcity of resources. Where these elements exist, they tend to be related to or governed by existing political dynamics, particularly relating to power and questions of access to power and resources. A number of analysts have focused on the roles played by political and military elites in the production of conflict in Greater Tonj – including the instrumentalization of identity issues or the politicisation of resource disputes (Craze 2022; UN Panel of Experts 2020; Watson 2023) – though others have also observed counter-vailing forces in local society that can constrain attempts by elites to incite conflict (Pendle 2021).

Two years after fighting between militia and military forces rocked neighbouring Tonj East County (discussed further in the profile for Tonj East), Tonj North County was affected by significant conflict that began in June 2022. This involved fighting between the military and local militia in Rualbet Payam, during which at least 65 government soldiers were reported to have been killed (Craze 2022, p.40), with upper estimates placing the death toll at 232 people in total (UNHRC 2023, p.4). UNHRC reported that some security forces operating in Rualbet were alleged to have engaged in human rights abuses and looting over the subsequent months (UNHRC 2023, p.4).

In addition to internal conflict within Tonj North, cross-border conflict with groups from Tonj East County as well as Unity State continues to be reported. During the dry-season, cross-border incidents usually increase as migration routes intersect and access to resources become more constrained, increasing instability along the borders with Unity State and Tonj East. In 2019 and 2020 this area experienced significant insecurity when Bul Nuer forces from Mayom County (Unity State) launched multiple attacks and asset-stripping raids against parts of Warrap State, in violence which was allegedly linked to local and national political agendas. The 2021 dry season saw increased raids by some armed pastoralists from Unity State’s Koch and Mayom counties into Tonj North, with insecurity persisting well into the rainy season (May to November). A serious incident at a market in the Akop area in April 2022 involving Bul Nuer cattle traders and youth from the Rek Dinka’s Apuk Padoc section killed around 25 people (Radio Tamazuj 2022), with clashes resuming in June 2023. Meanwhile, pre-existing tensions among some communities along the border with Tonj East also intensified, culminating in an attack in the border area of Marial Lou in July 2021, with armed elements targeting humanitarian facilities (Eye Radio 2021).

Pastoralists from Tonj North are among those from Warrap State who cross into Western Bahr el-Ghazal State during the dry season. Cattle migration has been associated with tensions between various sections of the Rek Dinka and parts of the Luo of Jur River County, with violence between the two communities in recent years tending to involve SSPDF and SPLA-IO elements on either side. Following extensive negotiations, the Marial Bai Agreement was signed in 2016 to help regulate the movement of pastoralist communities in the area, whilst establishing restrictions on the carrying of firearms into Western Bahr el-Ghazal. The agreement also established the compensation to be paid for damage caused to crops by cattle, and for the killing of cattle by farmers (VNG International, n.d.). This contributed to increased stability and a reduction of violence in the border areas between the two states, though underlying grievances have not in all cases been adequately addressed. However, tensions have escalated into violent confrontation at several points following the signing of the agreement, most notably during the first half of 2019, as is discussed further in the profile for Jur River County (Eye Radio 2019). A review of the agreement was conducted in late 2019, and included provisions for a mobile court, while a subsequent review during the pre-migration conference in Kuajok in late 2021 drew attention to the need for the agreement to place greater emphasis upon gender-based violence and associated justice mechanisms (UNMISS 2021).

ADMINISTRATION & LOGISTICS

Payams listed in government publications: Awul (County Headquarters in Warrap), Marial Lou / Marialou, Rual Bet /Rualbet, Alabet /Aliebek, Aliek, Kirrik, Pagol, Manalor

Additional payams listed by local actors: Akop, Warrap

UN OCHA 2020 map of Tonj North County: https://reliefweb.int/map/south-sudan/south-sudan-tonj-north-county-reference-map-march-2020

Roads:

• Tonj North does not have any primary roads that run through the state.
• A network of secondary roads in southern areas of Tonj North connects Warrap town to Wau (Western Bahr-el Ghazal State) and Tonj (Tonj South County). Seasonal road conditions are unknown.
• A tertiary road runs north-east of Warrap town to Marial-Lou on the border with Tonj East County, with two spurs running towards Gogrial East County to the north-west. The condition of this network is unknown.

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

Additional MAF-Recognised Airstrips: Awul

REFERENCES

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

Craze, J. (2022). ‘And Everything Became War:’ Warrap State Since the Signing of the R-ARCSS. Small Arms Survey/HSBA. Retrieved 18 July 2023.

de Waal, A. and Pendle, N. (2019). ‘Decentralisation and the logic of the political marketplace in South Sudan’ in Deng, L. and Logan, S, (eds.) The Struggle for South Sudan: Challenges of Security and State Formation. London: I.B. Tauris, pp. 172–194.

Eye Radio. (2019). Governor calling for review of Marial-bai agreement. Retrieved 12 January 2024.

Eye Radio. (2021). U.S. condemns looting of nutrition, food aid in Tonj areas. Retrieved 19 October 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.

IOM. (2013). Village Assessment Survey: Tonj North County Atlas. Retrieved 18 July 2023.

IRNA. (2021). Inter-agency needs assessment in Awul, Akop, Rualbet and Manlor Payams in Tonj North Warrap State, 11 April 2021. Retrieved 18 July 2023.

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 10 July 2023.

Pendle, N. (2021). Competing authorities and norms of restraint: governing community-embedded armed groups in South Sudan. International Interactions, 47 (5), pp. 873–897. Retrieved 19 October 2023.

Radio Tamazuj. (2022). Tonj North: 8 arrested for killing cattle traders. Retrieved 19 October 2023.

REACH. (2020). Integrated Needs Tracking (INT) County Profile – Tonj North County. Retrieved 18 July 2023.

Saferworld. (2015). South Sudan’s gelweng: filling a security gap, or perpetuating conflict?. Retrieved 3 November 2023.

Sudan Tribune. (2014). Warrap state under heavy attack from rebels: official. Retrieved 6 November 2023.

UNHRC, High Commissioner for Human Rights. (2023). Technical assistance and capacity-building for South Sudan Report of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. Retrieved 20 July 2023.

UNMISS. (2017). Special courts could aid peace process between warring groups in northern South Sudan. Retrieved 18 July 2023.

UNMISS. (2021). To prepare for seasonal cattle movement, the UN family supports a pre-migration conference in Kuajok. Retrieved 12 January 2024.

UN Panel of Experts. (2019). Final report of the Panel of Experts on South Sudan submitted pursuant to resolution 2428 (2018). Retrieved 19 October 2023.

UN Panel of Experts. (2020). Interim report of the Panel of Experts on South Sudan submitted pursuant to resolution 2521 (2020). Retrieved 19 October 2023.

VNG International (n.d.). Crops and Cows: The Potential of Cattle Migration Management in South Sudan. Retrieved 12 January 2024.

Watson, D. (2023). Rethinking Inter-Communal Violence in Africa. Civil Wars. Retrieved 19 October 2023.

REPORTS on TONJ NORTH

Craze, J. (2022). ‘And Everything Became War:’ Warrap State Since the Signing of the R-ARCSS. Small Arms Survey/HSBA. Retrieved 18 July 2023.

New Humanitarian. (2022). Interlocking crises: Why humanitarian needs keep increasing in South Sudan. Retrieved 18 July 2023.

Nsubuga, F. et al. (2019). Epidemiological description of a protracted cholera outbreak in Tonj East and Tonj North counties, former Warrap State, South Sudan, May-Oct 2017. BMC infectious diseases, 19(1), 1-8. Retrieved 18 July 2023.

Pendle, N. (2015). ‘“They Are Now Community Police”: Negotiating the Boundaries and Nature of the Government in South Sudan through the Identity of Militarised Cattle-keepers’, International Journal on Minority and Group Rights, 22(3), 410-434. Retrieved 18 July 2023.

REACH. (2024). SMART survey report in Tonj North County, Warrap state, South Sudan. Retrieved 17 April 2024.

* 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 sections of the Rek Dinka clan residing in Tonj North are collectively known as the ‘Greater Kuachthii’ (based in south-western areas of the county, comprising the Abiem/Abiem Mayar of Manalor Payam, the Nyong Akoc of Pagol Payam, and the Leer Ajak of Kirrik Payam); the ‘Greater Awul’ (based in western-central areas of the county, comprising the Noi of Warrap Payam, and the Atok of Awul Payam; note that the ‘Greater Awul’ are sometimes presented as being part of the ‘Greater Kuachthii’); and the ‘Greater Akop’ (based in eastern areas of the county, comprising the Awan Parek of Rual Bet/Rualbet Payam, the Apuk Padoc of Akop Payam, the Lou Paher of Marial Lou/Marialou Payam, the Konggor of Aliek Payam, and the Lou Mawien of Alabet/Aliebek Payam).