Experts fear more retaliation could lead to another round of violence, a harrowing prospect for hundreds of Christians still burying their dead.

Scores of Christian villagers in the Plateau State of Nigeria awoke on Sunday morning to a chilling sound: gunfire filling the pre-dawn air. When some left their homes to find the source of the sound, a far more chilling sight appeared: men with machetes.

By day’s end, according to Nigerian officials, Muslim gangs had killed as many as 500 people in three Christian villages. Some speculated the attacks were retaliation for January fighting in the region that killed more than 200 people—both Muslims and Christians. Whatever the motive, the carnage was grim and many of victims were helpless: witnesses described machete massacres of women, children, and the elderly.

Mark Lipdo of Stefanos Foundation, a Nigeria-based Christian organization that helps persecuted Christians, confirmed the reports to the BBC: “We saw mainly those who are helpless, like small children and then the older men, who cannot run, these were the ones that were slaughtered.”

Other witnesses said aggressors caught their victims in fishing nets and animal traps before hacking them to death. One witness reported a victim as young as 3 months old.

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