Attachments
Kajo-Keji County is one of the counties of Central Equatoria State in South Sudan. it was part of the six Counties of Central Equatoria State neighbouring Counties like Morobo, Lainya, and Juba. The county is located to the Southern part to Uganda bordering districts of Yumbe and Moyo, it takes 150 kilometres from Juba to reach Kajo-Keji town; the County comprises of five payams namely (Nyepo, Lire, Kangapo 1, Kangapo 2, and Liwolo Payam).
From the month of January to June 2021, Kajo-Keji County is one of the location regarded or classified as IPC4+ (facing acute food insecurity) that requires an emergency response. These was due to influx of returnees back to the county hence resulting to shortage of available food within the community, lack of health service, as well as education support. The second triger was due to conflict that happened in January 2021 in areas of Keriwa, Ajio, Mangoletore, and Korijo where all people of those location were displaced to Logo where currently there is an IDP camp with big population of 28, 831 individuals ( 3, 887HHs); and number of female individuals were 17,801, and male individual is 11, 030; within the location again a total population of 1,449 HHs for both returnees and host community.
The other triggers for the influx of the returnees was due to no schools currently in Uganda and children becomes spoiled not even listening to parents as reported by the community leaders, by that many decided to move with the children back to Kajo-Keji. Again another reason given was that in the refugee camps in Uganda, the citizens cant allow refugees to cut poles nor even collecting fire woods in the bushes, so it becomes challenging for women and men to live in such restriction, therefore some opted to return to Kajo-Keji; again the food ration was reduced to an extent that many families now resort to many coping strategies like staying the whole day and eats once, either the family members lives the food to only children to eat, and lastly reducing the number of meals eaten per a day.
The displacement of the people in Logo IDP Camp was caused due to Political Interest; these areas were earlier under the command of General Moses Lokujo one of top SPLM-IO whom later on defected to join the government in January 2021 and started again fighting other co-forces within Kajo-Keji resulting to displacement in all above mentioned areas (Keriwa, Ajio, Mangalatore, and Korijo. Despite of the fact that there is alitle bit of claim in Kajo-Keji County, afew people from areas of Logo, Meruwa, Pure, even Liwolo access Kajo-Keji town instead majority prefer going to the nearby markets of Meruwa and Mijale.And other areas like Ajio, Kala 1 & Kala 2, and Partly Mangalatore is not accessible.
Lastly, there is displacement that happened in Moijo and Kiguo of Kangapo 1 in March –April 2021, as result of clashes between government forces and the NSA as the areas mentioned is under the control of the NAS; this communities moved and get integrated into communities of Seregoro, Leikor, and others upto Mere center and since their displacement, no partner supported them inform of giving food or else Shelter-NFIs yet these displaced communities have their leaders within the community they were integrated to( total of 595HH). The RRC director requested for support to these two communities since they were not given anything since their displacement, as well as returnees who came back home within the month of January to September as more are accessing back home.
Based on our coordination with Tear fund and ADRA which was the only WFP partners on ground, their activities under WFP funding has eneded since July 2021; while for Tearfund, they have a small component of food voucher targeting afew HHs and is under Canadian support . However they prioritize for all partners in Kajo-Keji to target returnees, IDPs, and the most vulnerable host community, and request if NRC can give Kajo-Keji returnees as well as the IDPs the bigger number of responds within the project target.