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

By CARLEY PETESCH
Associated Press

DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — 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. Human Rights Watch says it is the worst single atrocity reported in Mali’s 10-year armed conflict against Islamic extremists. The group said it interviewed 27 witnesses and other experts about the killings. Moura, a town of about 10,000 residents in the Djenné administrative area of central Mali, has since 2015 been at the center of the conflict with extremist rebels and has seen widespread violence, abuses by all sides and the displacement of large numbers of civilians.