Kapoeta South

Kapoeta South County, Eastern Equatoria State

Demographics

2008 NBS Census population: 79,470

2021 NBS PES population estimate*: 67,826

2022 UN OCHA population estimate*: 102,427

2024 UN OCHA population estimate*: 67,827

2024 IPC population estimate: 105,499

2025 UN OCHA population estimate*:  105,511

Ethnic groups: Toposa, Didinga

Displacement Figures as of September 2024: 4,121 IDPs (-914 Sept. 2023) and 2,488 returnees (+153 Sept. 2023)
IPC Food Security: November 2024 – Crisis (Phase 3); IPC Projections: December to March 2025 – Crisis (Phase 3); April to July 2025 – Crisis (Phase 3)

Economy & Livelihoods

Kapoeta South County is located in Eastern Equatoria State. It borders Kapoeta North County to the north, Kapoeta East County to the east, and Budi County to the south and west.

The county falls within the south-eastern semi-arid pastoral livelihoods zone (FEWSNET 2018). Most residents depend on livestock rearing and trade for their livelihoods. The arid land is unsuitable for large-scale agriculture, although a 2018 report estimated that 56% of households in the county 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 at 0.92 tonnes per hectare, rising to 1.0 tonnes per hectare in 2022 (FAO/WFP 2023). Similar to the situation in neighbouring counties, cattle raids and conflict over pasture and farmland are common, especially in the context of man-made and natural disasters. This tension between livelihood groups is often reflected along ethnic lines, as members of the Toposa community are mostly cattle keepers, while those of the Didinga community are mostly farmers. Apart from Didinga, the Toposa community has also tensions with their agro-pastoralist neighbours, the Buya/Larim, over access to water and grazing land in the Kidepo valley.

Kapoeta South is rich in gold deposits. Artisanal mining is present in Kapoeta South, although it is unclear how many people engage with it as a primary livelihood in the area. Media reports indicate that many children are involved in mining for gold, despite child labour laws and the hazardous conditions. Also, the ban on illegal mining has recently led to attacks on mining companies. According to a 2020 Sentry investigative report, Kapoeta’s mineral wealth has created opportunities for wealth accumulation, with the state government reportedly issuing mining licenses and collecting taxes and other fees from mining companies outside sanctioned channels (Sentry 2020, p. 10). This has contributed to the illegal smuggling of gold out of the country. At the same time, a 2016 Cordaid report found that “criminal networks who do not hesitate to use violence” control some artisanal mining sites in Kapoeta (Cordaid 2016, p.20).

Kapoeta Town is a bustling market town just two hours from the border with Kenya and a primary point of entry for Kenyan goods. The population’s heavy reliance on trade and livestock for their livelihoods makes them extremely vulnerable to shifts in livestock-to-cereal terms of trade. In addition to the revenue generated by selling nuggets of gold, some artisanal miners use the gold they collect to barter for goods in markets across the border in Kenya, where South Sudanese Pounds are not recognized or accepted.

The IPC projected Kapoeta South to be in a crisis (IPC level 3) of food insecurity in November 2022, with conditions projected to persist at the same level until July 2025. This has been exacerbated by floods in the broader Kapoeta area, as well as the ongoing financial crisis in South Sudan, which has sustained poverty amongst the local population.

Infrastructure & Services

Kapoeta South County hosts Kapoeta Town, which is also the county’s headquarters. It has been an important market and a transit point for IDPs traveling to and from refugee camps in Kenya during the Second Sudanese Civil War and since the outbreak of the South Sudanese civil war in 2013.

Kapoeta South is home to thirteen (13) Early Childhood Development centres, sixteen (16) primary schools and two (2) Secondary schools, Kapoeta Day Secondary School and Fr. Aleardo Lokuru Secondary.

In December 2024, the WHO reported that Kapoeta South County had thirteen (13) health facilities, of which nine (9) were functional. These functional facilities included six (6) primary health care units (PHCUs), one (1) primary health care centres (PHCCs), and two (2) hospitals. This means there were approximately 0.85 PHCUs per 15,000 people and 0.47 PHCCs per 50,000 people in the county at that time. Kapoeta Civil Hospital was reported to have moderate functionality, while Kapoeta Mission Hospital had limited functionality.

According to OCHA’s 2025 Humanitarian Needs Overview, an estimated 68,026 people in Kapoeta South County are in need, representing approximately 64% of the county’s total population as reported by OCHA for 2025. For comparison, in 2024, OCHA reported that an estimated 32,790 people in Kapoeta South County were in need, of whom 29,382 were non-displaced, with the remainder comprising IDPs and returnees.

Conflict Dynamics

The predominantly Toposa area of Kapoeta South is a strategic stretch of land that has played an important role in the region’s development since the pre-colonial era, when it was a major supplier of ivory. In addition to sitting atop the critical road between Torit and the border town of Narus (enabling access to the major logistics and humanitarian hub of Lokichogio in northern Kenya), the county is known for artisanal gold mining in the hills south of Kapoeta town. During the second Sudanese civil war (1983-2005), internal divisions among the Toposa ethnic group led to a pragmatic approach to alliances with the warring parties, with some elements of the Toposa supporting the SPLA and others the Sudanese government, and with periodic realignments as well (Human Rights Watch 1993; Johnson 2003, p. 86). This pattern of shifting allegiances was overlaid on more localised disputes and cattle raiding between the Toposa and nearby ethnic groups, notably the Buya/Larim, Lotuko, and Didinga.

The SPLA’s approach to the Toposa oscillated between punishment and conciliation (Johnson 2003, p.114), and at times it was reported to have treated the population as hostile during the initial years of the war, prior to the SPLA’s capture of Kapoeta town in 1988. In the run-up to the government offensives that followed the 1991 SPLM/A split, the Sudanese government armed Toposa militias to assist in the recapture of the strategic hub of Kapoeta town. After the town fell to the government and its Toposa militia allies in 1992 – an event that also resulted in alleged attacks by the Toposa militia on refugees fleeing the town (Human Rights Watch 1993) – SPLA soldiers engaged in “deliberate and arbitrary killing of civilians of Toposa ethnicity in villages around Kapoeta,” according to a 1993 Amnesty International report. This unstable relationship between the Toposa and the SPLM/A continued throughout the civil war and into the Comprehensive Peace Agreement era after 2005. However, following the election of Toposa politician and former SPLA commander Louis Lobong as Eastern Equatoria State governor in 2010, the relationship between the Toposa community and the ruling SPLM improved. Lobong is currently the longest-serving governor in South Sudan and is regarded as capable of effectively projecting his power within the state politics of Eastern Equatoria (Boswell 2021, p.13; Small Arms Survey 2021, p.4).

Kapoeta South County largely avoided serious fighting between the SPLA and the SPLA-IO following the outbreak of conflict in December 2013. However, there were reports of sporadic clashes between government forces and various militia groups in Kapoeta South, possibly tied to the wider civil war. Since the signing of the peace agreement in 2018, the security situation in Kapoeta town has been relatively stable. However, insecurity along the crucial road network linking Kapoeta to Torit and Juba to the west – and to the Kenyan border to the south – has worsened due to the presence of various armed groups and criminal factions. Overlapping political and economic interests are common, given the role of political and military elites in regulating and profiting from the gold mining sector. Exclusion from the benefits of the mining sector – alongside displacement and environmental damage from mining activities – has increased resentment among local communities, state authorities, and mining companies (Saferworld, 2020, pp. 42-43). This has contributed to gold-mining areas becoming focal points of criminality and insecurity. In May 2017, two Chinese and Ugandan officials from a mining company were killed in a road ambush (Radio Tamazuj, 2017). In December 2025, the SPLA-IO attacked the SSPDF military and national security barracks in Kapoeta town. However, they were repulsed.

Such violence is often refracted through interethnic disputes between the Toposa and the neighbouring Buya/Larim and Didinga ethnic groups (Eye Radio, 2020; Radio Tamazuj, 2020; Radio Tamazuj, 2023). These conflicts reinforce strained relations among the three groups, with a 2020 UNDP report noting that Toposa-Buya/Larim relations, in particular, are characterised by fear and distrust. Conflict over water and grazing areas has become increasingly entrenched in Greater Kapoeta, while water scarcity in the dry season has prompted Toposa pastoralists to move into neighbouring Didinga areas (Saferworld, 2020, p. 42). Conflict involving the Toposa, Buya/Larim, and Didinga is discussed further in the profiles for Budi and Kapoeta North counties.

Administration & Logistics

Payams listed in Government and UN documents: Kapoeta Town (County Headquarters), Longeleya, Machi One, Machi Two, Pwata

Additional payams listed by local actors: Maurouro, Katigo (not Machi One or Machi Two)

UN OCHA 2020 map of Kapoeta SouthCounty: https://reliefweb.int/map/south-sudan/south-sudan-kapoeta-south-county-reference-map-march-2020

Roads:

  • A primary road runs west from Kapoeta town to Torit County and east from Kapoeta to Narus (and beyond, to Kenya). The road was designated “passable with difficulties” during both the rainy season of 2024 and the dry season of 2025.
  • A secondary road runs south from Kapoeta town to Chukudum town in Budi County. The road was designated “passable” during both the rainy season of 2024 and the dry season of 2025.
  • A secondary road runs between Kapoeta town and Boma town (Pibor County), passing through Kapoeta South County and becoming a tertiary road approximately 30km north of Mogos. This road was deemed impassable during the rainy season of 2024 and the early dry season of 2025.
  • A tertiary road between Kapoeta town and a junction in northern Budi County passes through the southern areas of Kapoeta North County. The condition of this road is unknown.

UNHAS-recognised Heli and Fixed-Wing Airplane Airstrips: Kapoeta

References

Amnesty International. (1993). Sudan: Patterns of repression. Retrieved 22 September 2023.

Boswell, A. (2021). Conflict and Crisis in South Sudan’s Equatoria. Retrieved 13 July 2023.

Cordaid. (2016). Mining in South Sudan: Opportunities and Risks for Local Communities. Retrieved 14 July 2023.

Eye Radio. (2020). Five gold-miners killed in Kapoeta South. 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.

FEWSNET. (2018). Livelihoods Zone Map and Descriptions for the Republic of South Sudan (Updated). Retrieved 10 July 2023.

Human Rights Watch. (1993). Civilian Devastation: Abuses by All Parties in the War in Southern Sudan. Retrieved 22 September 2023.

Johnson, D.H. (2003). The Root Causes of Sudan’s Civil Wars. Oxford: James Currey.

OCHA. (2021). Humanitarian Needs Overview: South Sudan 2021. Retrieved 10 July 2023.

Radio Tamazuj. (2017). Chinese, Ugandan gold miners killed in Kapoeta state. Retrieved 22 September 2023.

Radio Tamazuj. (2020). Gunmen kill 5 gold miners in Eastern Equatoria. Retrieved 22 September 2023.

Radio Tamazuj. (2021). 5 people killed, 7 others injured in Kapoeta-Ngauro road ambush. Retrieved 22 September 2023.

Radio Tamazuj. (2023). Three gold miners shot dead in Kapoeta South County. Retrieved 22 September 2023.

Small Arms Survey. (2021). MAAPS Update 9 February 2021: The Announcement of Deputy Governors in South Sudan. Retrieved 22 September 2023.

UNDP. (2020). Greater Kapoeta Conflict and Gender Assessment. Retrieved 14 July 2023.

Reports on Kapoeta South

AVSI. (2024). Enhancing Food Security and Education through School Gardening: A Report on AVSI Foundation’s Initiatives in Kapoeta East and South Counties, South Sudan. Retrieved 28 February 2024.

Cordaid. (2016). Mining in South Sudan: Opportunities and Risks for Local Communities. Retrieved 14 July 2023.

Hunter, M. and Opala, K. (2023). Tarnished Hope: Crime and corruption in South Sudan’s gold sector. Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime. Retrieved 14 July 2023.

REACH. (2018). Greater Kapoeta Cattle Migration and Cholera Transmission Brief. Retrieved 12 March 2025.

Saferworld (2020). ‘Like the military of the village’: Security, justice and community defence groups in south-east South Sudan. Retrieved 14 July 2023.

Schomerus, M. (2008). Violent Legacies: Insecurity in Sudan’s Central and Eastern Equatoria. Small Arms Survey/HSBA. Retrieved 14 July 2023.

The Sentry. (2020). Untapped and Unprepared: Dirty Deals Threaten South Sudan’s Mining Sector. Retrieved 14 July 2023.

UNDP. (2020). Greater Kapoeta Conflict and Gender Assessment. Retrieved 14 July 2023.

Walraet, A. (2011). Displacement in Post-War Southern Sudan: Survival and Accumulation within Urban Perimeters. MICROCON/IDS. Retrieved 14 March 2024.

* 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.