South Sudan’s government and rebels sent delegates to peace talks in Ethiopia on Tuesday, officials said, but ethnic fighting raged on in the world’s youngest nation and both sides battled for control of a state capital.
Militias loyal to former Vice President Riek Machar fought their way on Tuesday morning into the centre of Bor, the main town in the vast, underdeveloped Jonglei state and the site of an ethnic massacre in 1991, witnesses said.
Machar told the BBC his forces had taken the town while the army said it was outnumbered but still in control of several areas.
Western and regional powers have pushed both sides to end the fighting that has already killed at least 1,000 people, cut South Sudan’s oil output and raised fears of a full-blown civil war in the heart a fragile region.