Situation Overview: Greater Bahr el Ghazal Region, South Sudan (January - March 2020)

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Introduction

The Greater Bahr el Ghazal (GBeG) region experienced intermittent episodes of intercommunal violence (ICV) in the first quarter of 2020, which contributed to gaps in access to basic services. As needs continue to persist across the region, access to reliable and timely information remains critical to humanitarian planning and prioritisation of interventions in the region.

To inform humanitarian actors working outside formal settlement sites, REACH has conducted assessments of hard-to-reach areas in South Sudan since December 2015. Data is collected on a monthly basis through interviews with key informants (KIs) with knowledge of a settlement and triangulated with focus group discussions (FGDs). This situation overview uses this data to analyse changes in observed humanitarian needs across GBeG in the first quarter of 2020

Key Findings

• Population movement and displacement were seemingly driven by intercommunal violence (ICV) in Warrap and Western Bahr el Ghazal (WBeG) states in the first quarter of 2020.

• In line with annual trends, access to food reportedly worsened across the region. The proportion of assessed settlements reporting adequate access to food remained low in March 2020 at 26%, with a slight decrease from December 2019 (34%), likely due to the early depletion of limited food stocks.

• Perceptions of safety seemingly remained unchanged from the previous reporting period; only 25% of assessed settlements reported feeling safe most of the time, with the lowest reporting in Greater Tonj (12%) and Jur River County (0%), in line with high incidents of ICV throughout the reporting period. Conflict-related protection concerns such as killing or injury were most commonly reported for men, whilst early marriage and domestic violence were the primary concerns for girls and women respectively.

• Malaria remained the most commonly reported health problem across the region (33% of assessed settlements in March). Waterborne diseases were also commonly reported (26%), indicative of long-term water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) issues