300 killed by Mali's army and foreigners, says rights group

An international rights group says Mali's army and foreign soldiers suspected to be Russian recently killed an estimated 300 men — some of them suspected Islamic extremist fighters but most civilians — in Moura in central Mali

DAKAR, Senegal -- Mali's army and foreign soldiers suspected to be Russian recently killed an estimated 300 men — some of them suspected Islamic extremist fighters but most civilians — in Moura in central Mali, Human Rights Watch said Tuesday.

It is the worst single atrocity reported in Mali's 10-year armed conflict against Islamic extremists, according to the rights group which said it interviewed several witnesses about the killings.

Russian fighters are believed to have shot dead most of those killed in Moura in late March, according to witnesses who identified the killers as white soldiers who did not speak French. Several hundred Russian mercenaries have been deployed in Mali to help fight the extremist rebels, the U.S. military confirmed in January.

In the Moura incident, Malian army troops and foreign soldiers in late March rounded up several hundred men and shot dead about 300 of them, burying many in mass graves and burning others, according to Human Rights Watch.