Life Inside the POC: Field Realities of UN Personnel in South Sudan During the Rainy Season

This field account documents the daily challenges faced by United Nations personnel operating in a remote and insecure area of South Sudan. The testimony captures logistical, environmental, and security constraints encountered within and around a Protection of Civilians (POC) site during the rainy season. Interviewees describe extreme isolation, unpredictable weather, limited transport reliability, and the constant threat posed by armed combatants breaching perimeter fences. Additional hardships include inadequate infrastructure, food scarcity, and poor living conditions—exacerbated by mud, flooding, and minimal access to sanitation. The narrative offers an unfiltered portrayal of humanitarian fieldwork under duress, highlighting the intersection of operational resilience, safety risk, and human endurance in conflict environments.

ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0007-9248-723X

Permanent institutional archive: IDEALS at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Permalink: https://hdl.handle.net/2142/129150

Open-access repository: Zenodo

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17361823