Between 2012 and 2014 I worked at the protection cluster in South Sudan. When the current conflict started in 2013 it brought about several dilemmas for the humanitarian agencies operating on the ground, including, but not limited to, the following.

Tens of thousands of IDPs found shelter inside the UNMISS bases, where many continue to be living at the current time. The influx was sudden and unexpected, and UNMISS was hardly prepared to provide shelter and protection to civilians within its premises. Humanitarian agencies, aside from responding to the humanitarian needs of civilians in urban and rural areas of the country, started operating inside UNMISS, implementing projects ranging from food distribution to WASH, from education to protection. One of the main concerns, especially for protection partners as I can recall, was the risk of being perceived as affiliated to the UNMISS peacekeeping mission, whose presence in the country had been aimed at supporting and building the capacity of the Government, a party to the conflict. Yet, close coordination with UNMISS protection actors was required and actively sought, to ensure that protection considerations were mainstreamed in the provision of humanitarian assistance to the displaced in the bases.

Another dilemma I remember being discussed referred to air-drop food distribution, a very expensive tool that enabled humanitarian agencies to reach populations in need that would otherwise have been disregarded. The main concerns were related to the possibility that food would not have reached the intended targeted, but be diverted and possibly get in the hands of armed actors. Protection actors and members of FSL clusters discussed the issue very thoroughly, coming up with plans to ensure that the targeted beneficiaries were informed of the air-drop, that the event was organized in a way that would have not created protection risks, that the most vulnerable had access to the supplies and that the distribution was monitored so as to ensure that it was not diverted.

Both warring parties expressed their opinion that humanitarian assistance in South Sudan has been biased - the recent expulsion of Toby Lanzer echoing such declarations - whereas I believe that, at least for what I could witness until mid 2014, the humanitarian principles were seriously weighed and evaluated and no humanitarian action was taken by UN agencies or NGOs without taking such dilemmas into account.