Lafon County, Eastern Equatoria State
Demographics
2008 NBS Census population: 106,161
2021 NBS PES population estimate*: 85,212
2022 UN OCHA population estimate*: 157,151
2024 UN OCHA population estimate*: 85,210
2024 IPC population estimate: 161,866
2025 OCHA population estimate*: 163,767
Ethnic groups: Pari, Lopit, Tennet and Otuho/Lotuko (Loming)
Displacement Figures as of September 2024: 7,598 IDPs (-13,609 Sept. 2023) and 9,481 returnees ( -13,671 Sept. 2023)
IPC Food Security: November 2024 – Crisis (Phase 3); IPC Projections: December to March 2025 – Emergency (Phase 4); April to July 2025 – Emergency (Phase 4)
Economy & Livelihoods
Lafon County is located in the north-western corner of Eastern Equatoria State. It borders Kapoeta North County to the east, Budi County to the south-east, and Torit County to the south. It also borders Central Equatoria State (Juba and Terekeka counties) to the west and Jonglei State (Bor South and Pibor counties) to the north.
The county is categorized as being in the eastern plains’ sorghum and cattle livelihoods zone (FEWSNET 2018). Residents of Lafon County practice agriculture, animal husbandry (cattle, goat, and sheep), fishing, and hunting as their primary livelihoods. In 2018, it was estimated that 85% of households engage in agriculture (FAO/WFP 2018). The same estimate was reported in the 2021 data (FAO/WFP 2022). In 2021, gross cereal yields were estimated to be 1.0 tonne per hectare, decreasing to 0.9 tonnes per hectare in 2022 (FAO/WFP 2023). Common crops in the county include sorghum, okra, sesame, cowpeas, and tobacco. However, farming and fishing livelihoods are usually engaged with at or below subsistence levels. As a result, many households also rely on markets to meet their food needs.
While Lafon’s IPC classification remained fairly stable between 2016 and 2023, when the county was categorized at Crisis (IPC Phase 3) levels of food insecurity, as of November 2024, it was predicted to deteriorate to Emergency (Phase 4) from December 2024 to April 2025. While in previous years Lafon County’s crop yields were affected by droughts in the area, in 2019 its livelihoods were impacted by unusually heavy rainfall that led to flooding. Flooding continued to affect Lafon to a moderate extent throughout 2020 and 2021. However, over the last four years, Lafon has been facing recurrent drought, with 2023 being the worst. Consequently, the area has hit by severe hunger, and large numbers of people have been migrating to Torit, Juba, and to IDP and refugee camps in search of food since June 2023 (Eye Radio, 2023b; Radio Tamazuj, 2023d). Ongoing clashes in the area over several years have also inhibited farmers from cultivating, impacting local food supplies and making the population more reliant on markets and food distributions. However, the insecurity and financial crisis, worsened by the civil war, have made market supplies sporadic.
Infrastructure & Services
The governance of Lafon has been highly contested since 2005. The county’s name was the source of disputes between the Pari and Lopit, with the former favouring the name Lafon and the latter ’Lopa’. This led to the creation of two administrative areas, the ‘Lafon Corridor’ – run by a County Commissioner – and the ‘Imehejek Corridor’ – administered by an Executive Director reporting directly to the State Governor. This dispute is discussed in more detail under conflict dynamics below. On 20 July 2023, the Governor decreed that a new ‘Imehejek Administrative Area’ was to be established in the eastern (Lopit) area of Lafon County, which would report directly to the Governor’s office (Radio Tamazuj, 2023c). This followed suggestions to rename the county as ‘Lopa’ and subsequent lobbying by elements of the Lopit community for a new county in early 2023. The legality and implications of the move for the 2018 peace agreement remain to be determined.
Lafon County is home to three Early Childhood Development Centers, twenty-seven (27) primary schools, and three (3) secondary schools.
In December 2024, the WHO reported that Lafon County had twenty-eight (28) health facilities, of which twenty-three (23) were functional. These functional facilities comprised twenty (20) primary health care units (PHCUs), three (3) primary health care centers (PHCCs), and no hospitals. This translates to approximately 1.83 PHCUs per 15,000 people and 0.92 PHCCs per 50,000 people in the county at that time.
According to OCHA’s 2025 Humanitarian Needs Overview, an estimated 92,335 people in need are in Lafon County, representing approximately 56% of the county’s total population reported by OCHA for 2025. For comparison, in 2024, OCHA reported that an estimated 60,594 people were in need in Lafon County, of whom 34,556 were non-displaced people, with the remainder comprising IDPs and returnees.
Conflict Dynamics
Lafon is a strategic area due to its arable land, and functions as a food-producing area for militaries contesting territories to the north and northwest. A significant number of residents of the area – particularly from the Pari community – were recruited into the SPLM/A during the early years of the second Sudanese civil war (1983-2005). This exposed the area to attacks by government forces, though it also created divisions within the Pari community between groups aligned with the government and those supporting the SPLM/A (Kurimoto, 1994; Walraet, 2015, p. 190). Some local SPLM/A forces reportedly acted in an autonomous capacity during the 1980s and became enmeshed in localised and cross-border conflicts that affected the area (Kurimoto, 1994, pp.102-4). Lafon was the SPLM/A’s initial headquarters in Southern Sudan in 1988, before Torit was established as the movement’s operational headquarters in 1989. Disgruntled by their perceived marginalization following this move, some military commanders from the area joined the SPLM/A-Nasir faction in the 1991 split, sparking intense fighting amid a chronic food shortage. At the local level, some communities tried to stay out of the conflict through local agreements, but these often failed, leaving them trapped to face hostilities from both sides (HRW 1993). Heavy-handed responses from the SPLM/A faction led by John Garang against parts of both the Pari and Lopit communities affected relations with the local population (Walraet, 2015, pp.182-84), and, as in other parts of the Equatorian region, this complicated relationship with the centre of power endures today.
Since the conclusion of the second Sudanese civil war in 2005, politics within the country have become polarised amid a long-running dispute between the Pari and Lopit groups over the county’s name and the structure of its administration (discussed below). Although antagonism and conflict have existed between the Lopit and Pari, positive interactions through trade and mutual assistance during times of crisis are important aspects of the relationship between the groups (Walraet, 2015, p.189). In addition to the Pari and Lopit communities, the Tennet also have an established presence in the county and reportedly have historically close relations with the Lopit (Walraet 2015, p.179, fn.336). However, as noted below, both conflict and reconciliation activities have been reported between the Lopit and Tennet communities in recent years. The Lopit have traditionally enjoyed close relations with the Otuho/Lotuko community (some of whom are present in Lafon County, in addition to the larger Otuho/Lotuko community based in Torit County), though limited cross-border raiding and ambushes have been reported in recent years. Meanwhile, the Pari have similarly close relations with the Lokaya community of Juba County (Walraet, 2015, p.189).
The outbreak of the national conflict in Juba in December 2013 led to the mass displacement of residents fleeing the conflict to neighbouring counties, including Lafon. Following the outbreak of fighting in Juba in July 2016, opposition armed groups began arriving in the Lafon area, and fighting reportedly broke out on 15 August when the military came to retake Lafon town. The resulting insecurity displaced most of the town’s population. During this period, there were reports of alleged forced recruitment by armed groups, forced displacement, and heavy looting of nutrition supplies, medicines, schools, and houses. While active fighting has remained largely contained since the signing of the 2018 R-ARCSS, the presence of armed groups and government soldiers continued to disrupt the area, with insecurity on the roads interrupting livelihoods and, at times, resulting in the suspension of humanitarian activities.
Clashes between local militias, cattle raiding, and highway banditry are the primary security threats in the county. The historically sedentary Pari ethnic group tended to clashed with incoming Lopit herds in the county’s south, and the county also experiences cross-boundary insecurity from some members of the neighbouring Murle and Toposa pastoralist communities who travel to Lafon’s floodplains during the dry season. The Tennet, who are ethnically similar to the Murle, are reportedly often accused by nearby communities of colluding with the Murle when a suspected Murle attack occurs near predominantly Tennet-inhabited areas. In recent years, several notable incidents have involved ethnically organized militias. In July 2020, community leaders from Lafon reported that armed men (allegedly from Jonglei State) had attacked villages – including Tennet communities – around Arihilo/Arilo Payam (Eye Radio, 2020). In April 2023, following a dispute between the Lopit and Tennet communities, a peace dialogue was organized to resolve the issue. However, seven members of the peace delegation were killed in an ambush on their way back from Imehejek (Radio Tamazuj, 2023a; Eye Radio, 2023b). The incident resulted in an alleged reprisal attack in May 2023 (Radio Tamazuj, 2023b).
Lafon County constitutes a significant area of the Bandingilo National Park, which is home to thousands of wild animals. Despite its tourism potential, the area faces insecurity and infrastructure challenges, and wildlife-human conflicts involving farmland destruction are reported. Some residents of Lafon hunt wild animals for a livelihood, which has brought them into conflict with the Wildlife Authority, responsible for clamping down on poaching. For example, in January 2023, this resulted in the confiscation of a significant amount of bush meat and the arrest of suspected poachers, with SSPDF soldiers and the County Commissioner among those arrested (Eye Radio 2023a). In an incident suspected – though not confirmed – to be connected to the confiscation and arrests, some individuals reportedly damaged a plane belonging to a conservation NGO that works alongside the Wildlife Authority.
As with a number of areas of South Sudan, Lafon County has been affected by (sometimes contentious) processes of administrative reorganisation and (re)naming. The dispute escalated following an attempt to rename the county from ‘Lopa/Lafon’ to ‘Lafon County’ in 2009. The name ‘Lafon’ is used mostly by the Pari community living in the west of the county. However, some members of the Lopit community, who live mostly in the east of the county, feel the name ‘Lafon’ favours the Pari community’s claim to the area. The contested location of the county headquarters also reflects this dispute, which previously had its base at Imehejek (in an area largely populated by the Lopit community).
This dispute between the Pari and Lopit led to the creation of two administrative areas in 2012 in an attempt to reconcile competing claims: the ‘Lafon Corridor’ (reflecting Pari claims) in the western part of the county and the ‘Imehejek Corridor’ (reflecting Lopit claims) to the east. Some members of the Lopit and other communities have proposed that the name ‘Lopa’ is a more inclusive alternative name that reflects the presence of both Lopit (‘Lo’) and Pari (‘Pa’) communities. While some government and UN documents still use the name ‘Lafon’, other government documents have adopted the name ‘Lopa’. In February 2021, the Governor of Eastern Equatoria State convened the Pari and Lopit communities to discuss the county name and headquarters. In the spirit of compromise, the county was named Lafon, with the headquarters remaining at Imehejek (Eye Radio, 2021). This led to complaints from some Lopit communities who preferred the name Lopa. Subsequently, some Lopit youth allegedly expelled the Commissioner from Imehejek. In early 2023, the Lopit community presented a petition to President Salva Kiir through the State Governor, requesting that a separate county be established. After the President rejected their request, the Governor announced the establishment of the ‘Imehejek Administrative Area’ in the predominantly Lopit eastern part of the county in July 2023.
While the degree of contestation over the county name and headquarters is marked, the experience of Lafon County is also consistent with that of other areas of South Sudan and reflects more widespread perceptions regarding the relationship between administrative boundaries, power, and resources among some groups in the country. These perceptions are rooted in the notion that the establishment and/or control of an administrative unit is a pathway to obtaining increased resources (including jobs) or services from central authorities (Leonardi, 2013, pp. 182-84), and, conversely, fears of becoming marginalised in the event that administrative recognition goes unsecured (Walraet, 2015, p.192). While the dispute has become a recent focal point for Lafon’s political dynamics, this may have led to other long-term processes and dynamics becoming neglected. These include internal divisions that exist within the affected communities, alongside the militarisation of some community defence groups (the monyomiji, initiated youth) that has occurred in the wake of the second civil war. These issues are also situated within a more generalised condition of underdevelopment of the area, and complex historical relationships between some local communities and central power, sometimes manifesting in fraught relations between the government and the monyomiji (Walraet, 2015, p.194).
Administration & Logistics
Payams: Arihilo, Burgilo, Imehejek (County Headquarters**), Kurumi, Lohutok, Longiro, Marguna, Pachidi
UN OCHA 2020 map of LafonCounty: https://reliefweb.int/map/south-sudan/south-sudan-lafon-county-reference-map-march-2020
Roads:
- A secondary road connecting Juba and Lafon town was deemed impassable during both the rainy and dry seasons of 2024 and 2025. The same road heads south to Torit town, which was designated “passable with difficulties” during the same time period.
- A secondary road runs between Lafon and the far east of Torit County via Imehejek town. This road branches off from the Lafon-Torit Road about 20km south-east of Lafon town, at the start of the Lopit Hills. The condition of the road is unknown.
UNHAS-recognised Heli and Fixed-Wing Airplane Airstrips: None
Additional MAF-Recognised Airstrips: Lafon, Arilo/Lomorotok, Iboni, and Lokutok
References
Eye Radio. (2020). Armed Jonglei youth ‘terrorize’ Lopa-Lafon. Retrieved 14 July 2023.
Eye Radio. (2021). Lopa-Lafon communities agree to end 17-year dispute. Retrieved 14 July 2023.
Eye Radio. (2023a). 40 poachers arrested in Juba, 5,000 kgs of bush meat sized. Retrieved 19 September 2023.
Eye Radio. (2023b). 7 peace delegates killed in Lafon road ambush. Retrieved 14 September 2023.
Eye Radio. (2023c). Hunger-stricken Imehejek residents in EES flock to Juba City-Chief. Retrieved 19 September 2023.
FAO/WFP. (2023). Special Report: FAO/WFP Crop and Food Security Assessment Mission to South Sudan. Retrieved 31 July 2023. [See equivalent versions of the CFSAM report online for data from previous years.]
HRW, Human Rights Watch. (1993). Civilian Devastation: Abuses by All Parties in the War in Southern Sudan. Retrieved 22 September 2023.IRNA. (2014). Initial Rapid Needs Assessment Report for Internally Displaced population in Lafon County. 16 January 2014. Retrieved 14 July 2023.
Leonardi, C. (2013). Dealing with Government in South Sudan: Histories of Chiefship, Community and State. Oxford: James Currey.
Radio Tamazuj. (2021). Lopit, Toposa to embrace peaceful co-existence. Retrieved 14 July 2023.
Radio Tamazuj. (2023a). Governor Lobong blames NGO for death of Lafon peace delegation. Retrieved 28 August 2023.
Radio Tamazuj. (2023b). Six killed in Lafon County ‘revenge attack’. Retrieved 24 September 2023.
Radio Tamazuj. (2023c). Governor Lobong declares Imehejek an ‘Administrative Area’. Retrieved 25 July 2023.
Radio Tamazuj. (2023d). TNLA-Eastern Equatoria legislators raise alarm over hunger in Lafon. Retrieved 19 September 2023.
Schomerus, M. and Allen, T. (2010). Southern Sudan at odds with itself: Dynamics of conflict and predicaments of peace. Retrieved 25 July 2023.
Reports on Lafon
Kurimoto, E. (1994). ‘Civil War & Regional Conflicts: The Pari and their Neighbours in South-eastern Sudan’ in Fukui, K. and Markakis, J. (eds) Ethnicity & Conflict in the Horn of Africa, pp. 95-111. London: James Currey.
Kurimoto, E. (1998). ‘Resonance of Age Systems in Southeastern Sudan’ in Kurimoto, E. and Simonse, S. (eds.) Conflict, Age & Power in North East Africa, pp. 29-50. Oxford: James Currey.
OCHA. (2016). Inter-agency Rapid Needs Assessment Report: Lafon, Eastern Equatoria (1-3 December 2016). Retrieved 14 July 2023.
Simonse, S. (1992/2017). Kings of Disaster: Dualism, Centralism and the Scapegoat King in Southeastern Sudan. Kampala: Fountain Publishers.
Walraet, A. (2015). ‘Conflict and State-building in Lafon/Lopa, Eastern Equatoria State’ in Schomerus, M. (eds.) Conflict and Cooperation in the Equatorias, pp.173-199. AECOM/USAID.
* Note: The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) Population Estimation Survey (PES) was published in April 2023 based on data collected in May-June 2021. This uses a different method from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) Population Working Group (PWG) figures, which are based on a combination of 2008 census data and population movement data up to 2022. The large discrepancies are primarily attributable to these different methods rather than changes in the actual population numbers over time, and have been disputed by some civil society and analysts. Although the later PWG figures were produced more recently for the HNO 2023, at the request of the Government of South Sudan, the data and method used by the PES are being used as the basis for the Common Operational Dataset (COD) for the UN system for the HNO 2024 and likely beyond. For further details on this and other sources used in the county profiles, see the accompanying Methodological Note.
** Note: As noted in the conflict dynamics section, considerable complexity surrounds the administrative arrangements for Lafon County (Schomerus & Allen, 2010, p.43), though it was reaffirmed in 2021 that Imehejek would remain the de jure administrative headquarters for Lafon (Eye Radio, 2021). Following the announcement by the state Governor in July 2023 that a new Imehejek Administrative Area was to be established in the eastern side of the county, there has not been an official announcement regarding any potential relocation of Lafon County’s administrative headquarters to the western area of the county.
