1.2 The Humanitarian Situation in South Sudan

South Sudan is the world’s youngest sovereign state. After a lengthy civil war with its (now) northern neighbour Sudan, the warring parties signed a Comprehensive Peace Agreement in 2005, which paved way for a referendum on independence six years later. In January 2011, 99 per cent of the voters chose to secede. In the same year, on 9 July, South Sudan, with support from the international community, declared its independence and became the newest member of the United Nations system (International Crisis Group, 2021, p.4–5). Two years later, armed conflict broke out again and a devastating civil war followed, leaving about 1.4 million South Sudanese displaced within their own country (Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, n.d.) and more than 2.2 million in neighbouring states (UNHCR, n.d.).

In 2018 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, the conflict parties signed a Revitalized Agreement on the Resolution of Conflict in the Republic of South Sudan, after attempts to implement earlier peace accords failed (Vhumbunu, 2019). With the signing of the Revitalized Agreement, fighting between armed forces loyal to the President Salva Kiir and the opposition leader Riek Machar has largely subsided, but inter-communal violence and violence between militias and between government forces and rebel groups representing different ethnic groups continues (Mednick, 2021).

Due to the cumulative effects of years of conflict and climate change—with irregular rainfall resulting in alternating floods and long droughts—South Sudan remains in a serious humanitarian crisis. In 2021, more than 8.3 million of the country’s 11.7 million inhabitants are in need of humanitarian assistance across all 78 counties (United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs [OCHA], 2021a, p.4). Infrastructure and basic services are limited or absent in many areas. Almost half of the population do not have access to primary health care services and some 2.4 million boys and girls are estimated to be out of school (OCHA, 2021a, p.27). Food insecurity is high: for 2021, an estimated 7.7 million people were expected to be in need of food assistance, with more than 1.4 million children being acutely malnourished. This is the highest level of food insecurity and malnutrition since independence (ibid.). The quantity of water available per day is also below standard in many locations and every fifth person is unable to collect enough for drinking (OCHA, 2021a, p.26). Subnational violence, violence against humanitarian personnel and assets, bureaucratic impediments, operational interference, and COVID-19 movement restrictions hamper people’s ability to access humanitarian action. Moreover, they create a challenging operating environment for humanitarian aid workers and aggravate the humanitarian crisis on the ground (OCHA, 2021b).

Persons with disabilities are at high risk of exclusion. South Sudan is one of the few states worldwide that has neither signed nor ratified the CRPD and legislative processes to do so have stalled. Chapter 3 will provide more details about the situation of persons with disabilities and the legal and policy context.

Figure 1. Access Incidents and Key Constraints

Map of South Sudan showing the number of access incidents and key constraints by county. The counties with the highest number of incidents are Wau, Yambio, Yei, Piber and Torit.

Source: OCHA (2021c), June 2021.

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Map of South Sudan showing the number of access incidents and key constraints by county. The counties with the highest number of incidents are Wau, Yambio, Yei, Piber and Torit.

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