Introduction
Displacement trends, population needs and humanitarian access have all been negatively affected by insecurity resulting from the ongoing conflict in Unity State, which began in December 2013.
To inform humanitarian actors working outside formal settlement sites, REACH has conducted assessments of hard-to-reach areas in South Sudan since December 2015. The data is collected through interviews on a monthly basis from settlements across the Greater Upper Nile region, Greater Equatoria region and Western Bahr el Ghaza region.
Between 3 and 21 November, REACH interviewed a total of 337 Key Informants (KIs) in the Bentiu Protection of Civilians (PoC) site and Nyal. The KIs were from 209 settlements situated in 7 of the 9 counties in Unity State. The findings were triangulated through three focus group discussions (FGDs) conducted in the Bentiu PoC site and Nyal, secondary data and previous REACH assessments of hard-to- reach areas of Unity State.
In order to ensure an understanding of current displacement trends and humanitarian conditions in settlements from which displacement took place, new arrivals, representing 91% of KIs, were specifically targeted. The remainder of the KIs interviewed (9%) reported having been in the settlement or having had regular contact with someone from the settlement within the previous month. This Situation Overview focuses on changes in humanitarian needs observed since September 2016.
The first section analyses displacement and population movement in Unity during November, and the second section evaluates access to food and basic services for both internally displaced persons (IDPs) and local communities.
