12 Killed in Attack on Russian Village Home

ROSTOV-ON-DON, Russia -- Authorities say 12 people in southern Russia were killed, most of them slashed to death, by unknown attackers while gathered for a celebration in a village home. The attackers then tried to burn their bodies.

Among the dead were four children, including a newborn. Prosecutors said one of the children died of smoke inhalation and another of suffocation. The other two children and all eight adults died of multiple stab wounds.

Emergency services spokesman Alexander Tabakov says the killers moved the bodies to the second floor of the house and doused them with kerosene. They then started a fire on the first floor, but it fizzled out before reaching the second floor.

No motive is yet known for Friday's killings in Kushchevskaya, a farming village in the Krasnodar region.