South Sudan conflict: UN says atrocities on both sides
UN Human Rights fact finder Ivan Simonovic on atrocities in South Sudan
Both sides in South Sudan's conflict have carried out atrocities, a UN human rights chief has said.
In a BBC interview, Ivan Simonovic said the towns of Bor and Bentiu - which had changed hands a number of times - were now "ghost towns".
He was speaking after visiting South Sudan to prepare a report for the UN.
Several thousand people are believed to have been killed over the past month in the conflict between the government and the rebels.
'Looted and burned'
Bentiu has been all but wiped out after weeks of fighting After gathering first-hand information, Mr Simonovic told the BBC that both government soldiers and rebels had committed atrocities.
"The level of involvement in the atrocities was different in different locations."
Mr Simonovic said that worst-affected were the southern town of Bor, and Bentiu in the north of the country.
"Bor is empty and Bentiu does not exist anymore; it has been wiped out. It has not been only looted, it has been burned," Mr Simonovic told the BBC.
"You can find citizens only in camps for displaced persons. What is appalling is that you have an ethnicised truth, how conflict began, who is targeting civilians.
"I do think it is essential to have an enhanced monitoring and reporting on atrocities that have taken place."
Mr Simonovic said his team's report would be released in a couple of weeks' time.
The conflict broke out on 15 December, when President Salva Kiir accused his former deputy Riek Machar of plotting a coup - charges he denies.
The dispute has seen killings along ethnic lines - Mr Kiir is a member of the Dinka community, the country's largest, while Mr Machar is from the Nuer ethnic group.
Fighting erupted in the South Sudan capital, Juba, in mid-December. It followed a political power struggle between President Salva Kiir and his ex-deputy Riek Machar. The squabble has taken on an ethnic dimension as politicians' political bases are often ethnic. 
Sudan's arid north is mainly home to Arabic-speaking Muslims. But in South Sudan there is no dominant culture. The Dinkas and the Nuers are the largest of more than 200 ethnic groups, each with its own languages and traditional beliefs, alongside Christianity and Islam. 
Both Sudan and the South are reliant on oil revenue, which accounts for 98% of South Sudan's budget. They have fiercely disagreed over how to divide the oil wealth of the former united state - at one time production was shutdown for more than a year. Some 75% of the oil lies in the South but all the pipelines run north 
The two Sudans are very different geographically. The great divide is visible even from space, as this Nasa satellite image shows. The northern states are a blanket of desert, broken only by the fertile Nile corridor. South Sudan is covered by green swathes of grassland, swamps and tropical forest. 
After gaining independence in 2011, South Sudan is the world's newest country - and one of its poorest. Figures from 2010 show some 69% of households now have access to clean water - up from 48% in 2006. However, just 2% of households have water on the premises. 
Just 29% of children attend primary school in South Sudan - however this is also an improvement on the 16% recorded in 2006. About 32% of primary-age boys attend, while just 25% of girls do. Overall, 64% of children who begin primary school reach the last grade. 
Almost 28% of children under the age of five in South Sudan are moderately or severely underweight - this compares with the 33% recorded in 2006. Unity state has the highest proportion of children suffering malnourishment (46%), while Central Equatoria has the lowest (17%). 
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