(13 Jan 2014) Scores of South Sudanese government troops were loaded into trucks on the outskirts of Juba on Monday, headed for the rebel-held town of Bor.
As the nearly month-old conflict continued, negotiators for the two sides met face-to-face in Addis Abba, Ethiopia on Monday.
Despite the appearance of diplomatic progress, more violence also looks possible.
By every means of transport available, government troops were moving in on Bor, the capital of Jonglei state, just north of Juba.
Over the weekend the President Salva Kiir's military re-captured Bentiu, the state capital of one of South Sudan's oil-producing regions.
If government troops can retake Bor - which has already changed hands multiple times over the last month - the leader of rebel troops, former Vice President Riek Machar will be without any major holdings at the negotiating table.
Bor was the scene of a massacre led by Machar as far back as 1991, that saw his ethnic group, the Nuer, attack Kiir's ethnic group, the Dinka.
The current violence broke out on 15 December 2013 and quickly radiated across the country, often in ethnic-based attacks.
The South Sudanese military continues to battle men who served in the same ranks only a month ago but who are now labelled rebels.
A precise death toll is not known but the International Crisis Group has estimated that nearly 10-thousand people have died.
The UN says nearly 400-thousand people have fled their homes.
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