Bentiu sits on the Bahr el Ghazal River's southern bank in Guit County, approximately 654 kilometers northwest of the South Sudanese capital Juba. Across the river lies Rubkona, its twin town, connected by the El Salaam Bridge - a structure that has been bombed at least once, by Sudanese MiG-29s during the 2012 Heglig Crisis, killing three people. Before the civil war, Bentiu was the administrative and commercial hub of Unity State, with a population of roughly 100,000 including the surrounding county. The town served as headquarters for the state governor and as a gateway to the oil fields that make Unity State strategically valuable - and strategically cursed. The Greater Nile Oil Pipeline begins nearby and runs north into Sudan, all the way to the refinery at Port Sudan on the Red Sea. Another oil field sits near Tarjath, about 60 kilometers to the south. Petroleum defines the region's economy, and petroleum has shaped its wars.

When civil war erupted in South Sudan in December 2013, Bentiu fell quickly. A commander loyal to former Vice President Riek Machar seized the town from the national government, though Machar denied involvement. What followed was devastating. In April 2014, forces aligned with the Sudan People's Liberation Movement-in-Opposition carried out a massacre of civilians in Bentiu - in mosques, in churches, in the hospital. The town that had been a functioning capital became a burned-out shell. Families who survived faced a wrenching choice: flee south toward Juba, cross into Sudan, or seek shelter at the one place that offered any protection - the UN compound on Bentiu's outskirts, where peacekeepers had established a Protection of Civilians site. Tens of thousands chose the compound. By December 2014, between 40,000 and 50,000 people had crowded behind its perimeters. Doctors Without Borders began providing the only medical care available.

The Bentiu Protection of Civilians camp grew into the largest displacement camp in South Sudan. By 2016, over 120,000 people had sought refuge there. Conditions were brutal, particularly during the dry season when temperatures reach 115 degrees Fahrenheit. Water was scarce until additional wells were drilled with assistance from the Groundwater Relief organization. A 2015 survey found that residents preferred receiving news and radio broadcasts in Nuer, reflecting the predominantly Nuer population of the surrounding region. In 2018, the International Organization for Migration launched a tree nursery project within the camp, planting mango, guava, neem, and lemon trees - a small act of permanence in a place no one wanted to call permanent. But the camp's fragility was exposed that same year when Doctors Without Borders reported that 125 women and girls had been attacked while walking to a food distribution point outside the site. The UN deployed human rights investigators and increased patrols. By 2023, the camp population fluctuated between 100,000 and 160,000, swelled by both ongoing armed conflict and two consecutive years of severe flooding.

Outside the camp, Bentiu is slowly reconstituting itself. After the destruction of the Second Sudanese Civil War and the 2013 conflict, infrastructure has been painstakingly rebuilt. The Bentiu Civil Hospital, donated and constructed by the China National Petroleum Corporation, provides medical services. The Bahr el Ghazal River has been redredged to allow barge traffic. Rubkona's market across the river has resumed as the largest source of fresh produce for both towns. In May 2016, the town's water treatment plant was rehabilitated and upgraded. Schools that once taught in Arabic have switched to English instruction since 2005. There are plans for a Western Upper Nile University, though its completion remains uncertain. Bentiu has three primary schools and two secondary schools - modest numbers for a state capital, but significant for a place that, just a decade ago, was declared nonexistent. The rebuilding is real, but it proceeds in the shadow of the camp, where the majority of the area's population still lives behind barbed wire, waiting for a peace that holds.