South Sudan: severe climate displaces residents

Since 2020, over half a million people living in the state of Jonglei, South Sudan, have been impacted by severe weather events as reported by RFI on June 23rd. Flooding, caused by the rising of the Nile, and torrential rains have forced as many as 130,000 residents of the Jonglei counties to take refuge in displacement camps around Bor, the state capital. The cycle of flooding is ongoing and some have been living in the camps for over four years, waiting in limbo to return home.

At the displacement camp of Malual Agorbar, Diing Kuot Deng, 29 years old, tends to her sorghum farm. She describes leaving her village of Jalle in 2021, forced out by the rising floods with her five children: “we had to abandon our livestock and a lot of other things, and we arrived here with practically nothing.”

“Only God knows when we’ll be able to go back”, says Deng’s neighbour Akuol Manyang Ajak, 21 years old, voicing her wish, like many others living in climate displacement camps. Many inhabitants maintain a living through farming, but have no desire to settle in the camps and are hoping for the flooding to end.

The cycles of flooding are only worsening, according to UNICEF, and causing damaged infrastructure like schools to go unfixed, affecting access to education for over 60,000 students.

UNICEF Young Reporter, Nathaniel Thon, stated how in “Jonglei State, agriculture is our lifeline”, yet if the flooding persists and crops fails, malnutrition and outbreaks of disease are ever more likely.

The situation for the displaced people of Jonglei has become even more difficult as food distributions were halted two years ago, according to local chiefs, and circumstances will only exacerbate in the wake of President Donald Trump’s severe cuts to USAID.

Local chiefs did hope however that the work being done on the flood dyke north of Bor will enable the flooded villages to be drained.

Radio France Internationale, UNICEF