Declining Aid Sparks Self Reliance for Bentiu Women in South Sudan’s Biggest Camp

(BENTIU) – A group of 57 women living in South Sudan’s largest displacement camp has opened a restaurant, turning a community idea into a self sustaining business that now serves up to 50 customers daily.

The Women Forum in the Bentiu IDP Camp, where 109,000 people reside, first pitched the idea in 2024.

By October 2025, the restaurant became a reality, run and managed by the forum with support from the International Organization for Migration, which constructed the facility and provided cooking materials, kitchen sets and initial ingredients.

Theresa Nyagoang Lei, former Chair of the Women Forum, said the opening of the restaurant was her proudest moment. The restaurant gets around 50 customers per day and many more during weekends.

Theresa continues to work there to this day, supervising other cooks. The restaurant is open daily from 8 am to 7 pm with a changing menu that commonly features rice, beans, fish and other local dishes. The women use the earnings to buy ingredients, helping to sustain the business.

For Theresa, who has lived in the camp since 2014, the restaurant offers more than just a reliable source of affordable food, particularly during the rainy season when roads become flooded and access to markets is more difficult. She described it as a beacon of hope for the community.

The Women Forum, comprising 57 women, meets twice a month to discuss problems in the camp, propose solutions and plan community activities, such as annual events to mark the 16 Days of Activism against Gender Based Violence.

During her tenure, Theresa represented the women’s group in the State Task Force on Durable Solutions, which brought together government authorities, UN agencies and non governmental organisations.

There, she voiced the collective concerns of women in the camp as well as their perspectives and grassroots ideas for improving living conditions and advancing durable solutions.

Theresa first fled to the Bentiu IDP Camp with her five children. Today, she shares her tented home with three of them, its walls lined with brightly patterned fabric and topped by a straw roof.

Like many communities across South Sudan, Theresa and other residents of the camp are feeling the effects of declining humanitarian funding, even as needs remain high.

When asked about conditions, she said a lot has changed and not for the better. Residents are receiving less assistance. Water and sanitation services have severely declined compared to two years ago and more people are resorting to open defecation because of poor conditions in the latrines.

Given the deteriorating sanitation conditions, Theresa is particularly concerned about the ongoing cholera outbreak. Earlier in May 2026, suspected cholera cases in Unity State surpassed the alert threshold with most cases reported in the IDP camp.

According to the World Health Organization, the cholera outbreak, formally declared in October 2024, has reached 103,956 cases and 1,673 deaths across South Sudan, as of 22 May 2026.

Despite these challenges, Theresa remains hopeful. She said that when life gets difficult, one should not stop working. Her thoughts are now on how to expand the restaurant, given that she has passed the baton as Chairwoman of the Women Forum.