The United Nations is deploying crime-scene investigators; human rights officers and a child protection expert to central Mali to investigate inter communal violence over the weekend that killed more than 150 people, one-third of them children.

Spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani of the United Nation human rights office says the mass homicide in Ogossagou, in Mali's Mopti region, mostly targeted people from the ethnic Fulani community.

She said on Tuesday the horrific attacks signal a spike in killings in a cycle of violence in the region that has caused 600 deaths, and displaced thousands since last March.

Shamdasani said the attacks appeared to be motivated by an effort to eliminate violent Islamic extremist groups active in Mali, but that millions of people are being painted as violent extremists simply because they are Muslim.