Tonj South County, Warrap State

DEMOGRAPHY

2008 NBS Census population: 86,592
2021 NBS PES population estimate*: 292,316

2022 UN OCHA population estimate*: 119,606

Ethnic groups: Rek Dinka (Apuk-Jurwiir, Muok, Thony, Yar-Ayiei/Yaar), Bongo

Displacement Figures Q3 2022: 43,215 IDPs (+6,408 Q1 2020) and 33,906 returnees (+33,336 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 South County is located in Warrap State. It borders Tonj North County to the north-west and Tonj East County to the north-east. It also borders Lakes State (Cueibet and Wulu Counties) to the east and south (Wulu County), Western Equatoria State (Nagero and Ezo Counties) to the south-west, and Western Bahr el-Ghazal State (Jur River County) to the west.

The county covers two livelihood zones; the northern areas are part of the Western Flood Plains, whereas the southern areas are part of the Ironstone Plateau (FEWSNET 2018). The River Tonj flows from south to north, bisecting Tonj South County and passing along Tonj town, before eventually becoming part of the Bahr al-Ghazal River. In 2018, it was reported that 75% of households engaged in agriculture (FAO/WFP 2018), a figure which remained the same in 2021. Planting is conducted during the rainy season, though some cultivation also occurs during summer. The main crops are sorghum, sesame, maize, millet, and groundnuts. In 2021, gross cereal yields were estimated to be 1 tonne per hectare (FAO/WFP 2022), decreasing to 0.9 tonnes per hectare in 2022 (FAO/WFP 2023). Livestock ownership is widespread in Tonj South with a 2020 REACH assessment finding only 20% of settlements where residents do not possess or have access to livestock. Culturally, cattle are highly valued and play an important role in society and are a sign of wealth. Large settlements and cattle camps can be found along the River Tonj in Tonj South.

In November 2022, the IPC projected Tonj South 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 (with at least 25% of households expected to meet their calorific needs through humanitarian assistance) . The IPC Global Support Unit released an additional report from the Famine Review Committee indicating that 5% of the Tonj South population was likely experiencing Catastrophe (IPC Phase 5) levels of acute food insecurity in November 2020.

Tonj South was significantly impacted by flooding in 2020 and again in 2021 and 2022. Residents of Tonj South have given the year 2021 names that reflect the challenges the community is facing, Ruon Chokya (the year of where the drought spoiled the crops) and Ruon Abur (the year of the flood) with both weather extremes affecting the county (REACH 2021). Drought conditions in the months of May and June gave way to massive flooding beginning in July and continuing for multiple months.

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

Tonj Town serves as the county headquarters of Tonj South County and is the largest town between Rumbek and Wau. However, chronic insecurity, poor infrastructure, and weak governance has frequently discouraged traders from operating in the area.

According to OCHA’s Humanitarian Needs Overview for 2023, Tonj South has over 90,000 people with humanitarian needs residing in the county (up from 79,800 in 2021). This figure represents 75% of the estimated population for Tonj South County reported in the HNO. IDPs accounted for over 39,000 of those in need, with returnees representing a further 16,600. Displacement has impacted local infrastructure, as IDPs turn to institutions such as schools for shelter. Health infrastructure is also limited and unable to fully cope with emerging health crises such as the measles outbreak experienced in 2020.

Tonj South is home to three (3) Early Childhood Development centres, sixty-eight (68) primary schools and seven (7) secondary schools. Six secondary schools are located in Tonj Payam while Mayom Secondary is located in Thiet Payam.

Tonj South County was reported to have fourteen (14) health facilities, all of which were reported to be functional. Among them are nine (9) PHCUs, four (4) PHCCs and one (1) hospital in 2022. This means that there were an estimated 1.13 PHCUs per 15,000 people and 1.68 PHCCs per 50,000 people according to the WHO. Tonj State Hospital was reported to be moderately functional.

CONFLICT DYNAMICS

The Greater Tonj area – and particularly the present-day counties of Tonj South and Tonj North – 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).

While Tonj South is often associated with the Rek Dinka community, parts of the Bongo community reside in southern areas of the county, in addition to nearby areas of Lakes State. During the second civil war, the Bongo community was exposed to insecurity and displacement, while tensions increased with some pastoralist groups from Tonj South, Tonj East, and Cueibet counties. Following the establishment of the 2004 Panakar Peace Council (discussed further in the profiles for Rumbek Centre and Yirol West counties), a dialogue was initiated in February 2005 to address tensions between parts of the Bongo and Dinka communities over land use, as well as grievances relating to insecurity, alleged theft, alongside uneven political representation and access to services. The dialogue resulted in commitments to promote the restoration of positive relations and mutual respect between the two communities, and a greater provision of services to the Bongo community (PACT 2005).

During the national conflict (2013-2018), Tonj South did not experience violence or insecurity that directly resulted from the civil war. However, 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).

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 the Rek Dinka clan play an important role in the county’s conflict dynamics. Disputes over access to grazing land, boundaries, cattle raiding, a proliferation of arms, and inflammatory rhetoric contributed to the spate of violent clashes in the Tonj South throughout 2020. The epicentre of the conflict in Tonj South is the toic (swampy dry season pasture) area within Manyangok Payam. Disputes over land and access to pasture and other resources has led to conflict between elements of the Thony section of Manyangok on the one side and parts of the Yar, Muok and the Apuk Juwir sections on the other side since at least 2015.

However, the intensification of sub-national violence among some Dinka sections and sub-sections in Greater Tonj is rarely based 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).

Since 2015, Tonj South has also seen persistent violence stemming from divisions within and between parts of the Rek Dinka and Gok Dinka of Cueibet County (particularly the Akony and Panyar sections) in Lakes State. Initially, an alliance between the Gok clan and the Thony subsection of Manyangok Payam (Tonj South) allowed the Gok to use Manyangok as a base for cattle raiding in Tonj South, while also providing backup to the Thony. Since 2020, however, there has also been multiple cycles of attacks and counter-attacks between parts of the Thony and the Gok Dinka communities (Radio Tamazuj 2020).

Moreover, Tonj South’s location along the border of Western Bahr el-Ghazal State has also resulted in a partial overlap of national and existing cross-border conflict dynamics, which involves various sections of the Rek Dinka and parts of the Luo of neighbouring 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 along the Tonj South/Jur River axis, 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: Tonj town (County Headquarters), Thiet, Wanhalel, Jak, Manyangok

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

 Roads:

• A primary road from Wau (Western Bahr-el Ghazal State) to Rumbek (Lakes State) passes through Tonj town. The road was considered passable during both the rainy season of 2022 and dry season of 2023 according to the Logistics Cluster.
• A secondary road connects the town of Tonj in the south of the county to Thiet in the north. Seasonal conditions are unknown.
• Secondary roads from Thiet lead to Tonj North, Tonj East, and Cueibet (Lakes State) counties. Seasonal conditions are unknown.

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

Additional MAF-Recognised Airstrips: Tonj town

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.

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 10 July 2023.

Gurtong. (2016). Disarmament Program Launched in Tonj State. Retrieved via Wayback Machine 18 July 2023.

IPC. (2020). IPC Famine Review: Conclusions and Recommendations for Pibor County – South Sudan – IPC Analysis – November 2020. 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.

 PACT. (2005). Report on the Bongo-Dinka Peace and Governance Dialogue, 24 February 2005. Retrieved from the Sudan Open Archive on 6 February 2024.

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. (2020). 55 killed in cattle raid in Warrap State. Retrieved 19 October 2023.

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

REACH. (2021). Tonj South & East Rapid Assessment, September 2021. 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 SOUTH

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.

* 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.