Early morning at the United Nations Mission in South Sudan’s base in the capital Juba, peacekeepers are gearing up for a patrol to a notoriously unsafe area where civilians, including women and children, have been killed and displaced.

The peacekeeping convoy snakes its way southward through the city towards conflict-affected Wonduruba, in Central Equatoria State. The 122-kilometer drive should take just two hours, but the treacherous terrain, with heavily flooded and damaged roads, forces the convoy to travel for more than seven hours.

The peacekeepers camp out on the roadside overnight, sleeping in a hastily erected tent and cooking a simple meal in metal pots over charcoal fires. In the morning, they continue. But just five kilometers from Lainya, the patrol is stopped at a checkpoint. Despite intensive negotiations, they are forced to turn back by security forces.

“We try our best when we reach the checkpoints not to aggravate the situation and not to get into a conflict, but what suffers is our ability to reach locations where we can save lives of South Sudanese citizens,” says UNMISS Force Commander, Lieutenant-General Mohan Subramanian.  “Access denials prevent us from saving those lives.”

While a South Sudanese delegation is now investigating the violence in Wonduruba, UNMISS and other organizations charged with monitoring, preventing and responding to conflict have been denied access since April 2024. It is an example of a worrying trend in preventing UN peacekeepers reaching and protecting people in hotspots.

Most of the 700 Force patrols conducted by UNMISS every month take place unhindered, but UNMISS is repeatedly refused access in a few cases.