South Sudan IDP Figures Analysis

Prior to the crisis, around 189,000 people were newly displaced in South Sudan in 2013, and it is unclear whether the same people have been re-displaced due to current crisis, therefore this figure was not added to the current estimate.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) publishes biweekly figures on IDPs. It compiles data it receives on an ad-hoc basis from the government’s South Sudan Relief and Rehabilitation Commission (SSRRC), UN agencies, international organisations such as the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), NGOs, local authorities and community leaders. 

OCHA is unable to verify all of the figures prior to publication, because many IDPs live in areas that are difficult to access. Thirty per cent of the locations included in its figures for May 2014 were not verified, an improvement on the 53 per cent reported for the previous month.

Given that the displacement situation is highly fluid, populations are widely dispersed, and onward movement and repeated displacement are poorly tracked, OCHA’s figures paint an incomplete picture.

Neither the figure for Sudan nor South Sudan includes IDPs from the Abyei Area as its final status remains undetermined. More than 100,000 people were displaced following an incursion by the Sudanese armed forces in May 2011. No new displacements were registered in 2013. 45,000 Ngok Dinka from Abyei remain displaced, of whom 20,000 are in Abyei.

Data on displacement related to flooding and other natural hazards are rarely collected, rather the number of people affected by such events is estimated. There is a general lack of data on the extent of voluntary returns from the north, voluntary returns of those displaced within South Sudan, flows of people who have returned from the north but who are unable to reintegrate and move on elsewhere as well as pastoral groups displaced in relation to drought and other natural resource issues. 

Humanitarian organisations track new displacement caused by conflict, but information on IDPs in protracted displacement is not available. Registered returns of South Sudanese from the north are tracked, but data is only collected on returnees for six months. Given that some of the poorest families continue to move, resettle and re-migrate for many years after their initial displacement, there is very little understanding of the extent to which IDPs have been able to achieve durable solutions.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that large numbers of IDPs and returnees are living in vulnerable settings in urban areas, but there is little data to indicate the scale of the issue. IDPs and their host communities, often a complex mix of economic migrants, immigrants, older IDPs and voluntary returnees, are extremely vulnerable.

Such gaps are particularly visible in relation to those displaced within the South Sudan region during the civil war. Very little measurement of such displacement was undertaken.