All sides fighting in the war in Ethiopia's northern region of Tigray committed violations that may amount to war crimes, according to a long-awaited joint investigation by the United Nations and Ethiopia.
The report by the UN's Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCR) and the state-appointed Ethiopian Human Rights Commission was released on Wednesday, the day after Ethiopia declared a state of emergency.
Tigrayan forces said on Monday they might march on the capital to topple the government of Africa's second-most populous nation.
The report covers most of the year-long conflict, fought by Tigrayan forces against the Ethiopian military and its key allies: forces from Ethiopia's Amhara region and soldiers from the neighbouring nation of Eritrea.
All sides are accused of torturing and killing civilians, carrying out gang rapes and making arrests on the basis of ethnicity.
"We have reasonable grounds to believe that during this period, all parties to the Tigray conflict have committed violations of international human rights, humanitarian and refugee law. Some of these may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity," said Michelle Bachelet, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.
It was not immediately clear whether findings from the report could form the basis for legal action. Ethiopia and Eritrea are not members of the International Criminal Court, so the court has no jurisdiction.
The report recommended a possible international justice mechanism, saying Ethiopian investigations were insufficiently broad, did not always comply with international standards, and were not always transparent.
The report draws on 269 interviews, many accounts containing graphic details of rapes and mutilations by Eritrean soldiers on military bases.
Eritrea refused to engage with investigators, the report said, but has denied its forces carrying out rapes in the past despite extensive documentation.
Ethiopia has said some individual soldiers are on trial for rape and killing. Amhara has denied abuses.
Getachew Reda, a spokesman for the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), has previously denied that Tigrayan forces committed abuses but said some "vigilante" Tigrayan groups may have committed violations.
The 100-page report said that Eritrean soldiers had killed around 100 civilians in the city of Axum; that Ethiopian soldiers had dragged about 70 men from their homes and killed them in three villages in southern Tigray; and that Tigrayan forces had killed around 200 Amhara civilians in the town of Mai Kadra, a crime then followed by revenge killings of Tigrayans by Amhara.
The report said it was not an exhaustive list of incidents. The report also accused Eritrean soldiers of forcing Eritrean refugees living in Tigray to return, in violation of international law.
The report accused all sides of blocking aid at different times and said it could not verify whether starvation was used as a weapon of war, as had been previously alleged by the United Nations aid chief.
The conflict, which began a year ago, has plunged around 400,000 people in Tigray into famine, killed thousands of civilians and forced more than 2.5 million people in northern Ethiopia to flee their homes.
