The death toll from a week of sectarian violence in Nigeria has climbed to more than 500, with women and children targeted in ethnic-religious violence.
Earlier today villagers wailed as mechanical excavators heap earth on the bodies of dozens of children and women slaughtered during the clashes.
The group of dead -- 40 women and children -- are laid in rows inside a mass grave carved out of the ground in bush outside the city of Jos, capital of central Plateau state plagued by ethno-religious violence.
As the women weep loudly, grim-faced men watch the excavators fill the grave.
Village turns to cemetary
The once-virgin bush on the fringes of the village of Dogo Nahawa turned into a cemetery overnight, after more than 500 Christians were hacked to death with machetes in a three-hour orgy of violence on Sunday close to Jos.
Cactus branches cover other fresh graves, filled in earlier.
David Kyeng, a local vigilante who fled to the hills when the attackers raided the three Christian villages, estimates hundreds of herdsmen from the Muslim Fulani staged the slaughter.
"I saw these attackers shooting into the air, scaring people out of their homes and hacking them as they tried to flee," he tells AFP.
Women and children targeted
Pregnant women and children were among the scores of people cut down by axes, daggers and cutlasses, officials said.
Much of the violence was centred on Dogo Nahawa, where gangs set fire to straw-thatched mud huts as they pursued the rampage. Around two-thirds of the houses are burnt to the ground.
Amid the devastation and heartache, tensions are running high: around 30 men attack and wound a Muslim journalist covering the funeral, accusing him of spying.
"It is a provocation that you come here after all the dastardly things done by your people to our kids and kin," one yongster yells.
UN calls for restraint
Meanwhile UN chief Ban Ki-Moon and Washington led calls for restraint in the nation.
While troops were deployed to the villages to prevent new attacks, security forces detained 95 suspects but faced bitter criticism over how the killers were able to go on the rampage at a time when a curfew was meant to be in force.
Media reported that Muslim residents of the villages in Plateau state had been warned by phone text message, two days before the attack, so they could make good their escape before the exit points were sealed off.
Survivors said the attackers were able to separate the Fulanis from members of the rival Berom group by chanting 'nagge', the Fulani word for cattle. Those who failed to respond in the same language were hacked to death.
One local paper said the gangs shouted Allah Akhbar (God is Great) before breaking into homes and setting them alight in the early hours of Sunday. Churches were among the buildings that were burned down.
The Vatican led a wave of outrage with spokesman Federico Lombardi expressing the Roman Catholic Church's "sadness" at the "horrible acts of violence".
The UN chief told reporters he was "deeply concerned".
"I appeal to all concerned to exercise maximum restraint," he said.
"Nigeria's political and religious leaders should work together to address the underlying causes and to achieve a permanent solution to the crisis in Jos."
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