Current Time in Yei, South Sudan

Yei lies in the far south-west of South Sudan, in Central Equatoria State, close to the borders with Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It stands on the Yei River in the country's green belt, a well-watered zone of rolling hills, woodland and fertile red soils that contrasts sharply with the flat clay plains of much of South Sudan. Rain falls generously for much of the year, and mangoes, teak and thick vegetation surround the town.

Yei has long been a crossroads. Trade routes between the Nile valley and the forest kingdoms to the south passed this way, and the town developed under Anglo-Egyptian administration as a district centre with a hospital, mission schools and forestry plantations. Its population includes Kakwa, Pojulu, Avokaya, Baka, Mundu and Keliko communities, along with traders and families from across the region, and this mixture gave Yei a reputation for tolerance and coexistence that was widely praised.

During the long civil war with Khartoum, Yei became a major administrative and humanitarian hub for the southern movement after it came under rebel control in 1997. Aid agencies, churches and training institutions established themselves in the town, and after the peace agreement of 2005 it grew rapidly as refugees returned from Uganda and the Congo. Yei was often described in that period as one of the most promising towns in the south, a place of markets, new construction and mixed communities. Renewed conflict from 2016 caused severe displacement, and many residents crossed into northern Uganda; return and recovery have since been gradual but real.

The economy is agricultural. The area produces cassava, maize, groundnuts, sorghum, beans, coffee and honey, and it holds some of the country's most important teak plantations, established in the colonial period and still yielding valuable timber. Cross-border trade with Uganda through the Kaya crossing supplies the town with manufactured goods and provides an outlet for produce, and the road to Juba, about a hundred and fifty kilometres to the north-east, is one of the country's key commercial arteries.

Churches are central to public life. Yei is the seat of both a Catholic and an Episcopal diocese, and church institutions run many of the town's schools, clinics and peace-building programmes. A teacher training college, a vocational training centre and secondary schools make the town an educational centre for the wider region, and its hospital serves a large rural catchment.

Daily life revolves around the central market, where produce, fish, cloth and hardware are sold, and around football, music and community gatherings. Bicycles and motorcycle taxis, known locally as boda bodas, provide most transport.

Yei is a resilient town with an unusually cosmopolitan character, a fertile hinterland and an important place in the recent history of South Sudan.