Three years on, internally displaced people remain at the UN Protection of Civilians site in Juba, South Sudan. Photo: NRC/ Albert Gonzalez Farran, November 2016 groups and bandits. Such attacks have disrupted commercial traffic and humanitarian access in the south of the country significantly. OCHA estimates that 7.5 million people in South Sudan will require assistance in 2017, and the humanitarian community faces extraordinary challenges to reach them before the rainy season begins in May and populations become cut off.205 Armed groups tend to step up their activity before the rainy season, looking to make territorial gains before it sets in and vast swaths of the country become inaccessible by road for up to six months. The flow of people out of South Sudan, including those already internally displaced, is likely to continue and may increase in 2017 unless at least some of these issues are addressed. At the same time, there are concerns that some of the most vulnerable groups such elderly and disabled people and those with no material assets are unable to make the journey across the border or access the assistance they need inside the country. Others have returned from Uganda because the significant devaluation of South Sudan’s currency has reduced their assets and the value of their 58 GRID 2017 remittances to the point that their situation was no longer sustainable. Others still have gone back to reunite with family members or for security reasons. South Sudan also hosts almost 300,000 refugees from neighbouring countries. Ninety per cent live in the northern states of Upper Nile and Unity, which continue to be two of the worst affected by conflict and displacement. The vast majority of the refugees, 92 per cent, are from Sudan, and the remainder from CAR, DRC and Ethiopia. In June 2016, assistance was provided to Ethiopian refugees in Jonglei state for the first time since 2009. As the conflict escalates and spreads South Sudan continues plummeting to new depths of violence, displacement and food insecurity, and people are likely to resort to ever more desperate measures to seek safety and assistance. Increasing numbers are continuously on the move, and their high degree of mobility combined with the lack of humanitarian access make their situation difficult to monitor. It is clear, however, that the country’s borders have become a revolving door of displacement.