DTM South Sudan — Wiechjol Payam, Akobo County Intentions Survey and Multi-Sectorial Assessment Report | September 2017

Key Findings

1. IDPs within the host community at locations up to four hours walk from the centre of Wiechjol.

2. There are no health facilities at all six IDPs sites. The closest functioning health facility is located 11 hours away on foot in Lankien.

3. There are boreholes at four out of six of the assessed IDPs sites (no boreholes in Donykhan and Pangaw).

4. Stagnant water is used for drinking, cooking and washing.

5. Wiechjol is the only village with a functioning school, which is up to four hours away from the other ve locations.

Background

The Inter Cluster Response Mission (ICRM) team arrived in Wiechjol / Akobo in western Jonglei on 2 September 2017 to assess the critical needs of 4,000 vulnerable households. This includes the distribution of non-food items (NFIs), the administration of a rapid multi-sectorial and intention survey and potential WASH activities. The Relief Rehabilitation Authority and the local administration welcomed the team, which was based at Oxfam’s compound for twelve days.

Participating agencies within the ICRM included Oxfam, active in the WASH cluster, notably regarding the maintenance of boreholes. INTERSOS and the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) assessed the area to address NFI needs. IOM conducted a rapid multi-sectorial assessment in Wiechjol in order to understand the needs and gaps of the internally displaced and host community populations. IOM further administered an intentions survey in order to inform IOM and its partners on further population movements.

Since the onset of the civil war in South Sudan in December 2013, Jonglei has been one of South Sudan’s most conict-affected states. Nearly four years of continual national-level war, combined with long term structural-level communal violence, has led to personal insecurity.

Compounding this situation, Jonglei also suffers from one of the highest levels of food insecurity in the country, with the majority of its geography located within high-risk livelihood zones. Stretching east of the Nile River and south of the Sobat River Corridor, Jonglei’s vast plains are highly prone to ooding in the wet season, drought in the dry season, and year-round crop pest and livestock disease. As such, Jonglei maintains one of the highest proportions of population suffering from food insecurity and malnutrition in South Sudan, and presently nearing famine levels (IPC)1 .

Continual conict and structural food insecurity create prerequisite conditions for widespread population displacement. At present, Jonglei hosts the second highest amount of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the country, at an estimated 363,399 people (OCHA, September 2017)2 .

Wiechjol, in northwestern Akobo, was last impacted directly by displacement in April and May 2017 after a large scale offensive in neighboring Nyirol and Uror counties prompted population movements of civilians in the thousands as well as the evacuation of aid workers in the surrounding areas. Currently, one-third of the population in Wiechjol is displaced in as many as six different locations up to four hours walking distance from Wiechjol Center. Ongoing conict in nearby Waat means that the displacement dynamics in and around Wiechjol will remain in ux in the near future, with a strong potential for secondary and tertiary population displacements.