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obi-based AFPTV journalist Nichole Sobecki visits South Sudan, a country that less than three years ago celebrated its independence buty stands on the brink of civil war. Sobecki's reporting from the troubled nation (http://news.yahoo.com/bodies-litter-looted-south-sudan-n-000749939.html) included a visit to the town of Bor, where hundreds of civilians were slain.

an People's Liberation Army (SPLA) soldiers wearing looted UNICEF children's backpacks (http://news.yahoo.com/unicef-blasts-south-sudan-over-looted-school-backpacks-

190834527.html) walk along a road in Mathiang near Bor on January 31, 2014. (AFP Photo/Carl de Souza)

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ving into Bor the road is empty of all traces of normal life. Ragged bits of clothing and the skeletons of burnt trucks lie abandoned by anti-ernment forces that occupied the town for weeks. The smell of death is everywhere.

aken a military helicopter from Juba with my colleague Carl de Souza, an AFP photographer, and freelancer Charles Lomodong. On thet, hot flight, the helicopter blades roared, and I thought about what I’d read and heard about what Bor had endured over repeated waves of ting. Still, I wasn’t prepared for the scale of destruction and widespread killing we found.

Sheets cover dead bodies in Bor hospital on January 27, 2014. (AFP Photo/Ali Ngethi)

bodies of women, the elderly, and the handicapped lie alone, or in small groups - those unable or unwilling to flee the town, their livesed on the side of a path, or hiding under beds. Human rights groups hurry to catalogue the dead, as evidence of the crimes committed, andamily members might be able to identity their loved ones.

r a breakfast of sweet tea mayor Nhial Majak Nhial described the process of cleaning up the town. He believes somewhere between 2,0002,500 were killed in Bor town and it’s surroundings, scrawling the numbers into the hard, yellow dirt. Drawing a rectangle next, he saidwill need to find space for mass graves, before filling the rectangle with lines to represent the dead.

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tegically located about 200 km north of Juba, Bor has exchanged hands four times since South Sudan erupted into conflict this pastember. Tens of thousands fled, preferring to take their chances against crocodiles in the White Nile and sniper fire from its banks --hing to get out. Hundreds drowned in the attempt. Those who made it are now camping under trees in Awerial county on the other side of iver, where some have received help from aid agencies.

en government soldiers and Ugandan troops retook control of Bor on January 18 they found a town turned to rubble. Developing slowly aseconomic hub of Jonglei state before the conflict, Bor’s main market now lies in tangled heaps.

A business destroyed by looters in Bor. (AFP Photo/Carl de Souza)

oss town stands St Andrews Episcopal Church, where some 40 people were massacred. Dirt lays piled high beside the first of the plannede sites as the sun sets behind tall grass.

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meters from the church the thin figure of an old woman leans against a reed home, her blind eyes focused into the distance. The soleivor of the church massacre, Deborah Agot Deng recounted the sounds of violence: the repeated crack of gunshots around her, peopleaming, and the thud of bodies falling to the floor. She hid in the church compound for three weeks, until the town changed hands again,lyzed with fear. It’s only now, she says, that she is beginning to regain feeling in her body.

Deborah Agot Deng, who is blind, talks about her experiences of when fighting began in Bor. (AFP Photo/Carl de Souza)

death toll from the fighting is approaching 10,000, according to the International Crisis Group, while three quarters of a million haven displaced. Bor is hardly alone as a witness of crimes - members of both Dinka and Nuer, as well as other ethnicities, have been killed in

blood in towns across South Sudan.

me, as a visual storyteller, Bor was an especially difficult place to work. What we witnessed was raw and gruesome, and there was noer between us and the intimacy of death. Often when reporting on violence, the brutal nature of the crime is wrapped up in ritual. Familiesve for their loved ones and bury them with dignity. Bor, though, remains a ghost town. People come in from the Awerial camps for theto try and salvage any belongings that can be saved, but in the absence of any food, water or medical supplies they leave quickly.

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A mass grave near St Andrews church in Bor on January 31, 2014. (AFP Photo/Carl de Souza)

urning from a trip to Mathiang, a government military base outside Bor, Robert Majier Manyang pulled up beside a destroyed compound.nting to an abandoned wheelchair, he explained that his grandmother was killed here, and secured the lock on the thatched roof home

re her body still lay to keep animals out. His grandfather had also been tied up and executed further outside Bor.

SPLA government soldiers walk past dead bodies in Mathiang on January 31, 2014. (AFP Photo/Carl de Souza)

r that night, sitting around the military compound where we were staying, Robert spoke of his desire to bury his grandparents, and laywers on their grave. Unmarried at 29, he spoke with sadness of how his grandmother had told him he had to find a wife before she died.w it was too late.

arting Bor, Robert sat at the far end of our crowded flight. Like so many others, he left without burying his family, and the small comforteing able to say goodbye.

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A South Sudanese civilian stands in front of St Andrews church in Bor on January 30, 2014, where his grandmother was killed my rebels. (AFP Photo/Carl de Souza)

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