(CNN) -- The Ivory Coast should break a cycle of impunity and arrest perpetrators of human rights violations and other abuses after a disputed election last year, a top U.N. official said.
U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said she is concerned by the violence following the disputed election, including reports of summary executions, rape, torture and the use of children by parties to the conflict.
"We need concerted action designed to break the cycle of impunity, bring perpetrators to justice and rehabilitate victims in their rights and dignity," Pillay said in a statement Wednesday.
The west African nation plunged into bloody chaos after a disputed presidential vote in November.
Incumbent leader Laurent Gbagbo defied international calls to step down after he lost the election to Alassane Ouattara.
Forces loyal to Quattara seized the leader in April, essentially ousting him and ending the political stalemate that had raged for four months.
Rights groups have said both sides violated human rights.
"Some of the crimes committed during the post electoral crisis are particularly serious and might well constitute crimes against humanity," said Vitit Muntabhorn, who leads the commission of inquiry into Ivory Coast.
"This can be said for example of the generalized and systematic attacks on communities who were targeted because of their supposed political beliefs or their ethnicity."
More than 300,000 people are still displaced two months after the political crisis was settled, the United Nations refugee agency said this week.
Displaced people are further at risk because they are in areas with food shortages and the threat of disease, heightened by the rainy season,
Ongoing violence has also prevented their return home.
Communal tensions are still high in the southwestern Sassandra region, where more than 280 civilians were killed last month by mercenaries on the run from the commercial capital of Abidjan, the U.N. refugee agency said.
"Many of the dead are buried in mass graves," said Melissa Fleming, a spokeswoman for the refugee agency.
About 17,000 people are displaced in that region, including an unknown number still hiding in the forest, she said.
Ouattara has urged the International Criminal Court to investigate major crimes committed during the political standoff.
This month, the United Nations called for investigations after reports of attacks by forces loyal to Ouattara in areas known to support Gbagbo.
"The new government must show zero tolerance for the behavior of some elements of the Republican troops who continue to commit exactions," Muntabhorn said.
Ouattara has said he plans to set up a truth and reconciliation commission.CNN's Ben Brumfield contributed to this report
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