South Sudan's Oil-rich Unity State Have Caused Catastrophic Water Pollution, Leaving Communities, Scientists and Health Workers Scrambling

The town of Bentiu, capital of Unity State in northern South Sudan near the Sudanese border, once had only a few thousand residents. Since 2013, conflict and other crises have driven 140,000 displaced people to seek refuge there, living in a vast camp run by UN agencies including the International Organization for Migration (IOM), UNHCR and UNICEF. At a makeshift jetty, children play while canoes unload fish to feed the camp's residents, who face food shortages.

The catch is sorted immediately: fresh, healthy fish are separated from those suspected of contamination. Simon Gatkuoth, a camp resident in his early forties, pulls a fish from a wheelbarrow, saying it is contaminated, caught near oil fields. "When we cook them, the soup often smells like penicillin, he says.

"But we have no choice. We can't stop eating because there is no alternative. From above, the camp resembles a man-made island in a region turned into a vast lake.

Northern South Sudan's mostly nomadic communities had adapted to seasonal floods in the Sudd, one of the world's largest seasonal wetlands. In 2021, an unprecedented climate-related flood disaster submerged farmland across the region, destroying livelihoods and killing thousands of cattle. A year earlier, authorities in neighboring Uganda had warned that rising water levels in Lake Victoria, about 1,000 kilometers to the south, would send large volumes of water into the White Nile, which flows past Bentiu.

Because the terrain has little gradient, the water spreads instead of flowing north. Climate change fuels such heavy rains in Uganda and alters Sudd soils, reducing their absorption capacity. But South Sudan, one of the world's poorest countries, lacks the dams, flood defenses and water infrastructure needed to cope.

Many communities were left exposed, and the water has not receded. A simple IOM-maintained dike is all that separates the camp from the flooded plain; without constant upkeep, it would give way. Residents appear exhausted: displaced by war and hit by floods, most depend on humanitarian aid, caught between rising waters and unresolved conflict.

In recent years, another disaster has emerged, linking the 2021 floods to a major environmental hazard: Unity State is South Sudan's largest oil-producing region. Oil accounts for over 90 percent of state revenue and nearly all exports, a vital sector for an economy battered by the war in neighboring Sudan to the north. Pipeline flows have shrunk to a trickle, and many reserves remain untapped.

An analysis found that in 2021, 159 of over 400 oil wells in the region were submerged, about 41 percent of local oil infrastructure. Working with PlaceMarks Africa, an organization using satellite imagery to address continental challenges, DW found that more than 50 of those wells remain underwater today. This raises concerns for nature and residents: rivers and lakes essential for drinking water, cooking and fishing for hundreds of thousands appear contaminated by oil fields.

Long-term, both local ecosystems and human health could suffer. Many animals die due to this pollution, and people also suffer symptoms they attribute to it.