Traditional huts, or tukul, of bamboo, mud brick and thatched roof stand strong.

Women wait in line at the borehole for their turn to fill yellow jerricans with water.

A group of men sit under a tree chatting about politics and what’s happening in the community.

This is Kochethey, a well-established settlement outside Bentiu town in the north of South Sudan.

Not long ago, this land was bare. Now more than three hundred families have settled here and are beginning to rebuild their lives after fleeing a surge of armed conflict that broke out in 2015.

Twenty-four year old Pay Gatluak lived in the UN Protection of Civilians site next to the UN base in Bentiu for three years seeking sanctuary from the conflict. Today, he has left the PoC site in search of a new life at Kochethey.

“I came out because I found that many displaced people were leaving the PoC and returning here. The situation here is different from life in the PoC,” says Pay Gatluak. “Outside it is relatively calm and stable unlike in the PoC which has a lot of problems like robbery at night and also sometimes people kill themselves. We feel a bit insecure inside but here we do whatever we want to do and we are free.”

“What I can say is that the situation outside is better, it is okay. People should come out,” he says.

Pay, who lost his father during the 2015 conflict, says he left the PoC site with his mother, two sisters and a brother to start over again. He has a temporary job as a carpenter at the Danish Refugee Camp where he makes beds and tables, a skill he learnt from his father.

Like Pay, nineteen-year-old Theresa Nyemer fled her home to find refuge at the UN PoC site where she has lived for three years. Following a lull in the conflict, she says she felt “confident to return home.”

“When we came back we found that our village was destroyed, and we had to start from scratch, and we start building.” Theresa says because of this, there is a sense of unity in the village.

“The situation here has improved. It is not like before. We feel safe.”

Theresa, who teaches maths and science at Dingding Primary School, says she “found that the children were eager and motivated to learn and I wanted to contribute with the little I had to teaching these children.”

Bentiu Head of Field Office, Hiroko Hirahara, said the protection of civilians by UN peacekeepers goes beyond the PoC sites. “We have to accommodate the needs of people who want to go outside to build their villages and cultivate.”

That is why more patrols are being conducted by the UN Mission in South Sudan beyond the PoC sites to “show presence and build confidence in the community that UN peacekeepers are present”.

Through the Beyond Bentiu strategy, UNMISS and humanitarian partners are also investing in local communities and the local economy to create opportunities to improve the lives of those who want to return home by providing basic services like schools and health clinics.

This joint approach is proving successful at Bentiu where more than 17,000 people who lived in the UN POC site have now officially returned to their homes to live with dignity, and in peace.