BOR, South Sudan — Bor, a regional capital in South Sudan, is now a ghost town of looted shops and corpses.

English-language graffiti curses the ethnic group of South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir. A dead body lay stiff on a hospital bed, pools of dried blood beneath it, one of the thousands of victims of South Sudan’s bloody, monthlong war.

South Sudan’s military, backed by Ugandan troops and fighter aircraft, retook Bor from rebels over the weekend.

Negotiators for Kiir and former Vice President Riek Machar, who was dismissed from office along with the rest of the president’s cabinet in July, told reporters over the weekend that an agreement for a cease-fire is close. But a Twitter account believed to be controlled by Machar, now considered a key leader of the rebels, today ruled out a cease-fire unless political prisoners are freed.

Machar has accused Kiir of moving the country toward dictatorship. Kiir in December accused Machar of a failed coup d’etat in December.

The U.N. estimates thousands of people have died and more than half a million driven from their homes as a result of fighting in the world’s newest nation. Talks aimed at securing a ceasefire have been ongoing in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa for several days.