GENEVA  (AFP) -- Twenty-seven Muslims were killed Thursday in an attack by militias in a village in the west of the Central African Republic, the UN's human rights agency said Friday.

"According to information we have received, 27 Muslims were killed by self-defence militias, known as anti-Balaka, in the village of Bohong ... on Thursday," agency spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani told reporters in Geneva, decrying "a vicious cycle of attacks and reprisals" in the country.