South Sudan’s rebels have accused the government in Juba of violating the recent ceasefire deal aimed at ending hostilities in the country.a

The chief rebel negotiator, Taban Deng, said on Sunday that forces loyal to President Salva Kiir attacked rebel positions around the northern oil hub of Bentiu only hours after the two sides agreed in Ethiopia to end the war unconditionally.

The rebels “condemn in the strongest terms possible the continuous aggression and violation” of the ceasefire, Deng stated.

South Sudan’s army spokesman Philip Aguer, however, rejected the claims by the rebels, saying the government troops “have not moved anywhere.”

The chief mediator for the Inter-governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), Seyoum Mesfin, said on Saturday that the warring factions in South Sudan have agreed to a ceasefire.

“The parties commit to an unconditional, complete and immediate end to all hostilities, and to bring the war to an end,” Mesfin added on the sidelines of the 28th Extraordinary Summit of the IGAD Head of State and Government in Addis Ababa.

Peace negotiations between President Kiir and the country’s rebel leader, Riek Machar, which began almost 10 months ago, resumed in the Ethiopian capital on November 6.

South Sudan plunged into violence in December 2013, when fighting erupted between troops loyal to Kiir and defectors led by his former deputy, Machar, around the capital, Juba.

The conflict soon turned into an all-out war between the army and defectors, with the violence taking on an ethnic dimension that pitted the president’s Dinka tribe against Machar’s Nuer ethnic group.