Uror County, Jonglei State

DEMOGRAPHY

2008 NBS Census population: 178,519
2021 NBS PES population estimate*: 115,297
2022 UN OCHA population estimate*: 196,292

Ethnic groups: Lou Nuer (Gun/Goon, Mor)

Displacement Figures Q3 2022: 15,188 IDPs (+1,195 Q1 2020) and 8,494 returnees (-94 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

Uror County is located in the centre of Jonglei State and does not share any borders with neighbouring states. Instead, it borders Nyirol County to the north, Akobo County to the east, Pibor and Bor South Counties to the south, and Twic East, Duk and Ayod Counties to the west.

The county is part of the eastern plains, sorghum and cattle livelihood zone (FEWSNET 2018). Agriculture and livestock rearing are both important sources of livelihood in Uror County. A 2018 report from FAO and WFP estimated that 45% of households in the county engaged in agriculture, which remained the case in 2021. Gross cereal yields were reported at 0.55 tonnes per hectare in 2021, increasingly to 0.6 tonnes per hectare in 2022 (FAO/WFP 2022; FAO/WFP 2023). The main crops grown are sorghum, millet, groundnut, pumpkins and vegetables, while sesame (simsim) is reportedly being grown in small quantities. People rear cattle, goats, sheep and chicken. Because Uror does not have primary rivers to support its cattle, seasonal migration is important for sustaining animal husbandry. Cattle migration primarily takes place during the dry season (November-April) when pastoralists migrate towards the south-eastern bank of the Sobat River. Fishing and foraging supplements livelihoods, comprising an estimated 20-25% of poor and very poor household annual food needs (FAO/WFP 2018). The main hazards to livelihoods in the area include conflict and cattle raiding, flooding, livestock diseases, crop pests, and drought.

The violence that erupted in December 2013 severely disrupted livelihoods in Uror County. Seasonal food insecurity was exacerbated by substantial flows of IDPs. Markets that depended on food commodities coming from Juba through Bor were completely cut off during the crisis. In October 2020, an IRNA of Uror County reported that households have no reserves of food stocks at home and the market is unavailable to Uror residents due to lack of purchasing power.

IPC projections for Uror are at Emergency levels (IPC Phase 4) of food insecurity as of November 2022, and are project to remain at Emergency levels until at least July 2023.

Flooding in late 2020 significantly affected the people of Uror. An October 2020 IRNA assessing Uror county found that torrential rains caused flooding which devastated livelihoods via crop failure, massive livestock death and home destruction in most of the flooded payams in Uror County. The heavy rain started in early September 2020 which led to the overflow of some the rivers and streams and resulted in the displacement of up to 70,000 people and massive disruption to livelihoods activities.

INFRASTRUCTURE AND SERVICES

The county headquarters is located in Yuai town in Uror Payam. Uror County is located in the centre of Jonglei State and borders six of the state’s nine counties in addition to the Greater Pibor Administrative Area (GPAA). With the assistance of community volunteers, county commissioners initiated the construction of a road between Yuai and Duk Padiet to the west in Duk County in 2015. Northeastern parts of Uror County were administered as Bieh State under the SPLA/M-IO’s new map for South Sudan. In early 2020, South Sudan returned to its former 10 state arrangement, re-establishing Uror County according to its original boundaries.

While Uror’s current schools do not have the capacity to serve all of Uror’s youth, the county is home to sixty-six (66) primary schools and two (2) secondary schools, Pulchuol Secondary and Billual Secondary, both in Uror Payam. There are no Early Childhood Development centres in Uror county. A REACH assessment in 2018 found that only 4% of assessed settlements reported having access to educational services.

Uror County was reported to have twelve (12) health facilities including eleven (11) functional health facilities, among them eight (8) PHCUs and three (3) PHCCs in 2022. This means that there were an estimated 0.61 PHCUs per 15,000 people and 0.77 PHCCs per 50,000 people according to the WHO, which ranks Uror as among the ten counties with the lowest ratios of PHCUs/person in South Sudan. No hospitals were reported in Uror County.

OCHA’s Humanitarian Needs Overview for 2023 estimated that around 147,200 people in Uror County have humanitarian needs (up from 133,800 in 2021), which represents approximately 75% of the estimated population of the county reported in the HNO.

CONFLICT DYNAMICS

Uror County occupies an important position for the management of intra-Lou Nuer affairs, as well as for managing relations between the Lou Nuer and neighbouring communities. Pieri is home to the Lou Nuer spiritual leader, Dak Kueth, who has at times been influential in the management of relations between the Lou, Gawaar, and Eastern Jikany Nuer communities, and exerted an influence over conflict dynamics within Jonglei State. As with the other primarily Lou Nuer counties of Nyirol and Akobo, opposition to the SPLM/A predates the 2013 civil war, and is rooted in the founding of the movement in the 1980s. Alongside participation in national conflicts, elements of the Lou Nuer community have also been central actors in series of localized wars, with decades of escalating conflict with between parts of the Lou Nuer and their Murle neighbours in Pibor County, alongside intra-Nuer conflicts within the Akobo area and between armed groups from the Lou and the Gawaar Nuer clan from Ayod. Despite periods of conflict with the Dinka of Jonglei State, cultural, economic, and marriage ties exist between the Dinka and Nuer communities in western Lou Nuer areas, and the communities have at times co-operated or provided support to one another during some periods of insecurity or hardship. Decades of militarization, marginalization and violent confrontations have scarred the development and recovery potential of the area.

Uror’s Yuai town fell within the ‘hunger triangle’ in Jonglei, where the combination of conflict and food insecurity led to the deaths of tens of thousands of people in 1992 and 1993, following the fracturing of the SPLM/A into contending factions in 1991. The SPLM/A faction commanded by Riek Machar was alleged to have moved large numbers of people to Yuai – enlarging the small settlement to the size of a town, necessitating the relocation of humanitarian and UN personnel to the area – whilst simultaneously turning Yuai into a military command post. This created circumstances in which a humanitarian hub was positioned on the frontline of factional fighting. The SPLM/A faction under the command of John Garang dispatched forces to take Yuai (and the towns of Waat and Ayod) during two assaults in 1993, causing significant damage to the town amid reports of alleged mass killings of civilians, including Dinka civilians (some of whom could also speak Nuer) who had been displaced to the area (HRW 1993; Johnson 2003, pp. 116-117).

In July 2005, Yuai town was the site of the intra-Lou Nuer peace meeting, which aimed to reconcile the Gun/Goon and Moor sections of the Lou Nuer. The peace meeting also represented an important step in addressing the rift among Lou Nuer commanders who were on different sides of the war, and ultimately improved freedom of movement within predominantly Lou Nuer areas of Jonglei State, while increasing access to services (notably water infrastructure) (PACT Sudan 2006, p.115).

During the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) era, Uror was affected by political turbulence and realignments at the national and subnational levels. As is discussed further in the profile for Ayod County, relations between the Gawaar and Lou Nuer communities would oscillate during the early stages of the CPA. Meanwhile, militias from parts of the Lou Nuer community were the subject of a forcible disarmament campaign by the SPLA in early 2006, which led to significant violence in parts of Uror and Nyirol counties, with Lou Nuer youth allegedly supported by commanders who had recently joined the SPLA (Alden and Arnold 2007; Young 2007). Fighting was particularly acute in the areas of Moto, Yuai, and Karam. Prior to the campaign, a Nuer spiritual leader was reportedly killed in Yuai when attempting to persuade the local community to hand over arms to the SPLA, raising further tensions in the area (Small Arms Survey 2007, p.334).

As the CPA era progressed, escalating conflict affected parts of the Lou Nuer, Dinka, and Murle communities of Jonglei State (ICG 2009). Despite periodic conflict between armed groups from the Dinka and Lou Nuer, elements of the two communities would co-operate during large-scale raids into Pibor in 2011 (with the Lou Nuer earlier conducting significant raids into Pibor in 2009). In August 2011, large numbers of Lou Nuer civilians were reportedly killed during attacks by armed groups from the Murle community in Uror (Small Arms Survey 2012). Many Lou Nuer youth also joined George Athor’s rebellion in 2010 and 2011, returning home with weapons and ammunition they used when they joined ‘white armies’ (discussed below) in Pibor in December 2011. In late 2011 and early 2012, reprisal attacks into Uror by Murle militia reportedly killed dozens (UNMISS 2012, pp.21-22).

At the outset of the national conflict (2013-2018), elements of the Lou Nuer community responded to the outbreak of violence in Juba in December 2013 with community-based defence groups and formal military members quickly joining the push towards Juba via Bor (discussed further in the profile for Bor South County). A former South Sudan Defence Forces commander, Peter Gatdet, initially led the opposition forces (that would become known as the SPLA-IO) in Jonglei in late 2013, with many Nuer officers and soldiers defecting to the opposition in the early stages of the conflict (Young 2015). Additionally, the ‘white armies’ mobilized to defend their communities. ‘White’ armies are distinguished from ‘black’ armies in that the white armies are informal, and the black armies are the organized, uniformed forces.

In May 2015, fighting between SPLA and the SPLA-IO near Uror County displaced people deeper into Uror County. Uror County was under SPLA-IO control for most of the civil war, though Yuai was taken by the SPLA in 2017. The UN Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan report (2020, pp.24-25) described an SPLA assault on Yuai town in February 2017, in which civilians were killed, property and food supplies were destroyed, and at least two women were sexually assaulted. Many civilians were displaced to the Motot and Pieri areas of Uror. Fighting continued in Uror during March and April 2017, and resumed across the spring of 2018, causing widespread displacement.

Notably, while parts of the Murle community from the newly established Greater Pibor Administrative Area (GPAA) remained loyal to the government, they did not engage in organized attacks on the Nuer areas as part of the civil war effort. Murle authorities were keen to maintain improved relations with the Lou Nuer and avoid being dragged into the national conflict, and took steps to return stolen cattle and punish Murle raiders when raids did occur (Felix da Costa et al. 2022, p.235). However, Uror (as well as other Lou Nuer areas) have been affected by a series of raids and ambushes attributed to Murle youth since the signing of the R-ARCSS in 2018. Although Murle raiders have been active in several parts of Uror (particularly youth from the area of Nanaam in north-west Pibor County), attacks are often attributed to the Murle based upon little or no evidence, with some attacks later transpiring to be instances of intra-Nuer fighting or raiding.

Uror has been exposed to both internal and cross-border insecurity since the 2018 R-ARCSS. Inter-sectional conflict among parts of the Lou Nuer community has occurred relatively frequently, though has been conjoined by periodic peacemaking efforts (Radio Tamazuj 2024). After the formation of the RTGoNU in February 2020, power alliances within Jonglei shifted, fuelling large-scale subnational conflict between parts of the Dinka, Nuer and Murle. In early 2020, a series of small-scale Murle raids into several Dinka and Nuer areas of Jonglei State – including a serious raid into Nyirol (Radio Tamazuj 2020) – overlapped with tensions relating to the reconstitution of the GPAA as part of the post-R-ARCSS governance arrangements. This resulted in organised armed groups comprising parts of the Dinka (from Twic East and Duk counties) and Lou and Gawaar Nuer communities engaged in attacks in various locations around Pibor, with Lou Nuer forces occupying Lekuangole. UNMISS Human Rights Division (HRD) reported that at least 51 Murle villages and settlements were attacked or occupied in late February and early March 2020 (UNMISS/HRD 2021, p.6).

In response, an estimated 7,000 Murle fighters reportedly attacked Pieri in Uror County in May, which had been left largely unprotected. The Murle attack drew in Lou Nuer elements of the SSPDF and SPLA-IO to defend the area (UNMISS/HRD 2021, p.6), with hundreds reportedly killed (Al Jazeera 2020). Alleged reprisal attacks by Dinka and Nuer militiamen (numbering 17,000) in Pibor were reported between June and August, with Murle militia recovering some abductees and cattle stolen by the attacking groups after they were forced to withdraw from Pibor once the rains arrived. UNMISS HRD estimated that at least 738 persons were killed and 320 wounded during months of violence, and also noted the involvement of elements of security institutions in providing support to the belligerents, alongside planning and support from elites with connections to the communities in question (UNMISS/HRD 2021, pp. 10-12).

Between March 2021 and late 2022, the Pieri Peace Agreement reduced (though did not eliminate altogether) violence and raiding between the Murle and the Dinka and Nuer, as is discussed in further detail in the profile for Pibor County. However, raids increased in Nyirol between February and May 2022, with authorities implicating Murle raiders in the attacks. In late December 2022 and January 2023, large numbers of Dinka and Nuer militia from south-western and northern Jonglei (alongside some Nuer militia from Ethiopia’s Gambella Region) attacked areas to the west and north of Pibor town, with over 300 people reported killed in the ensuing fighting and attacks (UNMISS HRD 2023). The raid into the GPAA was characterized by significantly more abductions of Murle than usual. While Murle armed youths mobilized to defend their community, groups of armed Murle youth reportedly launched attacks in Nyirol county on 26 December. In the first half of January 2023, suspected Murle groups attacked Duk Padiet in Duk county, Waat in Nyirol, and Walgak in Akobo, alongside raids in parts of Uror. Raiding into Uror by alleged Murle militia continued until May 2023, including a significant attack in Pathai Payam that reportedly killed 19 people in March (Eye Radio 2023).

ADMINISTRATION & LOGISTICS

Payams listed in Government and UN documents: Uror (County HQ: Yuai Town), Karam, Motot, Pathai, Payai, Pieri, Puolchoul, Tiam

Additional payams listed by local actors: Pamai

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

Roads:

• A primary road running from Bor town north-east to Akobo town (via Gadiang) cuts through southern Uror County. This road was also deemed impassable during the rainy season of 2022, and passable with difficulty only between Bor and Gadiang in the dry season of 2023, with the remainder of the road deemed impassable.
• A primary road runs through northern Uror County, connecting Ayod town to the west to Waat town (in Nyirol County), before running south-east to Akobo town. This road was designated impassable in the rainy season of 2022, though was passable with difficulty between Ayod town and Pathai in the dry season of 2023.
• A secondary road connects Duk Padiet town to Waat town (in Nyirol County), via Yuai in western Uror County. The entirety of the road was deemed impassable in the rainy season of 2022, though the road was deemed “passable with difficulty” in the dry season of 2023 between Duk Padiet and Yuai town, though was impassable on the final stretch of the road to Waat.
• Road security – In 2023 there have been a significant number of humanitarian convoys being intercepted and looted by unknown armed groups whilst travelling in the Gadiang area.

UNHAS-recognized Heli Landing Sites and Airstrips: Pieri

Additional MAF-Recognised Airstrips: Motot, Yuai

REFERENCES

Al Jazeera. (2020). Hundreds killed in inter-communal clashes in South Sudan. Retrieved 27 October 2023.Arnold, M. and Alden, C. (2007). “This Gun is our Food”: Demilitarising the White Army Militias of South Sudan. NUPI working paper. Retrieved 8 December 2023.

Eye Radio. (2023). Suspected armed raiders killed 21 people in Uror. Retrieved 9 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.

Felix da Costa, D., Pendle, N. and Tubiana, J. (2022). ‘The growing politicisation and militarisation of cattle-raiding among the Western Nuer and Murle during South Sudan’s civil wars’ in Bach, J-N. (ed.) The Routledge Handbook on the Horn of Africa, pp.224-238. Abingdon: Oxfordshire.

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

HRW, Human Rights Watch. (1993). Civilian Devastation: Abuses by All Parties in the War in Southern Sudan. Retrieved 22 September 2023.

ICG. (2009). Jonglei’s Tribal Conflicts: Countering Insecurity in South Sudan. Retrieved 27 September 2023.

Johnson, D.H. (2003). The Root Causes of Sudan’s Civil Wars. Oxford: James Currey.

IRNA. (2020). Uror IRNA Draft Report to flood affected residents, November 2020. Retrieved 17 July 2023.

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

PACT Sudan. (2006). Sudan Peace Fund (SPF): Final Report October 2022 – December 2005. USAID.

Radio Tamazuj. (2024). Rival Lou Nuer clans reconcile in huge Uror County conference. Retrieved 31 January 2024.

Small Arms Survey. (2007). Small Arms Survey 2007: Guns and the City. Retrieved 9 December 2023.

Small Arms Survey. (2012). My neighbour, my enemy: Inter-tribal violence in Jonglei. Retrieved 9 December 2023.

UNHCR. (2020). “There is nothing left for us”: starvation as a method of warfare in South Sudan. Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan. Retrieved 17 July 2023.

UNMISS. (2012). Incidents of inter-communal violence in Jonglei State. Retrieved 9 December 2023.

UNMISS HRD/Human Rights Division. (2021). Armed Violence Involving Community-Based Militias in Greater Jonglei: January – August 2020. Retrieved 17 July 2023.

UNMISS HRD/Human Rights Division. (2023). UNMISS Brief on violence affecting civilians (January – March 2023). Retrieved 20 July 2023.

Young, J. (2007). Sudan People’s Liberation Army: Disarmament in Jonglei and its implications. Institute for Security Studies. Retrieved 8 December 2023.

Young, J. (2015). A Fractious Rebellion: Inside the SPLM-IO. Small Arms Survey/HSBA. Retrieved 9 December 2023.

REPORTS on UROR

Breidlid, I. and Arensen, M. (2017). ‘The Nuer White Armies: Comprehending South Sudan’s most infamous community defence group’ in Saferworld, Informal armies: Community defence groups in South Sudan’s civil war, 27-40. Retrieved 17 July 2023.

Gordon, R. (2014). In the eye of the storm: An analysis of internal conflict in South Sudan’s Jonglei State. Retrieved 17 July 2023.

Maxwell, D., et al. (2014). Researching livelihoods and services affected by conflict. Livelihoods, access to services and perceptions of governance: An analysis of Uror and Nyirol counties, South Sudan. Retrieved 17 July 2023.

Mayik, B. M. (2020). Investigating the impact of child abduction and cattle raiding among the Dinka, Nuer and Murle communities in Jonglei State, South Sudan. International Journal of Peace and Development Studies, 11(2), 9-14. Retrieved 17 July 2023.

REACH. (2022). Uror County Rapid Assessment: Jonglei State, South Sudan, August 2022. Retrieved 17 July 2023.

UNMISS. (2012). Incidents of Inter-Communal Violence in Jonglei State. Retrieved 17 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.