In 2017, amid civil war and famine in South Sudan, people waited for World Food Programme assistance. Reuters photographed women in Thonyor, Unity State, on 25 February as they waited to be registered before a food distribution. In May, more than 17,000 displaced people were registered by WFP and UNICEF in Aburoc and queued for part of 180 tonnes of food flown in because roads were inaccessible.
The end of the line offered no luxury, only grain that might carry a family to its next meal. An orderly distribution did not mean that aid was sufficient, and some people could not reach it at all. The queue marked both the arrival of assistance and the depth of a crisis in which roads and markets had ceased to work.