South Sudan Humanitarian Bulletin Issue 1 | 18 January 2018

HIGHLIGHTS

• Conflict, hunger and diseases, among other factors, forced more than 700,000 people to flee South Sudan as refugees to neighbouring countries in 2017.

• In 2017 over 1,159 humanitarian access incidents were reported by humanitarian actors in South Sudan, indicative of increasingly difficult times for aid workers in the country.

• Humanitarian partners working in Malakal PoC site in Upper Nile are stepping up response activities to address the incidence of people attempting suicide.

• As part of the ongoing cholera response, health partners have deployed cholera vaccines to complement traditional prevention strategies in highrisk locations.

FIGURES

No. of Internally Displaced People 1.9 million

No. of refugees in neighboring countries 2.0 million

No. of people food insecure (Jan-March 2018) 5.1 million

FUNDING (2017)

$1.17 billion funding received in 2017*

71% of appeal funding received in 2017

$1.6 billion requirements for South Sudan 2017 Humanitarian Response Plan

700,000 South Sudanese fled as refugees in 2017

Conflict, hunger and disease, among other factors, forced nearly 700,000 people to flee South Sudan as refugees to neighbouring countries in 2017, the latest refugee data shows. More than 70 per cent of those fled in the first half of 2017, which saw multiple military offensives in Upper Nile, Jonglei, and the Greater Equatoria region.
Nearly 4 million people – about one in three South Sudanese - have been displaced, including more than 1.9 million internally displaced and over 2.0 million who have fled as refugees to neighbouring Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Tens of thousands crossed into Uganda in the first half of 2017 following increased hostilities in East, Central, and Western Equatoria. Uganda now hosts over one million South Sudanese refugees; of those more than 85 per cent are women and children. The number of South Sudanese living in six refugee camps in northern Uganda rose to 1.03 million in October, but dropped to 986,000 by the end of December.

Others crossed to Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Central African Republic (CAR), which are hosts to more than million South Sudanese refugees. Families crossing the border have cited the security situation, hunger, and disease as the primary driving factors. The number of South Sudanese forced to leave their country in 2017 is slightly lower than the 760,000 people who left in 2016.

According to partners in the region, security concerns were mainly fueled by fear of indiscriminate killings, ethnically motivated attacks, torture, looting and burning of homes, and forced recruitment of young people by armed groups in South Sudan. Many travelled on foot for several days through the bush, afraid of militant groups and roadblocks on main roads to the border.

The situation in South Sudan remains dire, over four years after fighting broke out in December 2013. Between February and June 2017, famine was declared in parts of Unity, mainly driven by conflict and a collapsing economy, according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC). The food security analysis model projected in its October report that nearly half of the population – 5.1 million people – will not have enough to eat, between January and March 2018. The spread of diseases such as cholera, malaria, and kala-azar are compounding the situation.