Nearly three months after rebels overran Bentiu and killed several hundred civilians in a mosque, the South Sudanese town close to some of the country's biggest oilfields is still a wreck. The dead are now buried in mass graves and government troops have regained control of the mucky streets. Rebels remain nearby and fighting flares up occasionally. The killers, who had been stirred up by agitators on local radio, are still in the vicinity. The smell of death lingers in the air. Most of Bentiu's residents remain in the bush, scared away by boyish gunmen, some of them too short in stature to fit into uniforms. Looted public buildings are shells. The offices of the Red Cross are strewn with paper and shards of glass. An alarm bell rings incessantly. Six months after a civil war broke out, peace deals continue to come and go. The last one signed by the country's president, Salva Kiir, and the rebel leader, Riek Ma-char, was on June 10th, after they met face to face in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia's capital, and agreed to form a transitional government within 60 days. It was their fourth deal this year. Each collapsed within days.
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