South Sudan PROMO Spotlight - December 2025

Displaced Between Homelands: Protection Risks and Reintegration Challenges of South Sudanese Returnees

South Sudanese people who were displaced into Sudan years or decades ago find themselves being displaced back towards South Sudan by the Sudan Crisis. Defined as “returnees” because of their historical ties to South Sudan, these people face acute protection risks at each stage of the displacement journey and are vulnerable to falling through the cracks of well-intentioned but over-strained policy and programmatic frameworks that seek to support their reintegration. This Protection Monitoring Spotlight charts the specific protection risks faced by returnees at each stage of the displacement pathway: from the initial trigger and perilous journey out of Sudan, to the initial arrival and longer-term efforts to start a new chapter of life in South Sudan. Furthermore, it explores specific challenges faced by South Sudanese returnees in their efforts to secure safety, and ideally, a durable solution. The analysis is informed by the experiences of people served by Protection Cluster members in Renk (Upper Nile State) and Aweil East (Northern Bahr el-Ghazal State), and the protection actors supporting affected individuals and communities in South Sudan.