Villagers in central Nigeria buried dozens of bodies, including those of women and children, in a mass grave yesterday after attacks in which several hundred people are feared to have been killed.

Armed police and soldiers stood guard as residents of Dogo Nahawa, about 15km south of the central city of Jos, carried bodies wrapped in multi-coloured cloth from trucks and lowered them into a large open pit in the red-brown earth.

Residents of the small village and two other predominantly Christian settlements said Muslim herders from surrounding hills attacked in the early hours of Sunday, opening fire to force them out of their homes before slashing them with machetes.

Acting President Goodluck Jonathan called an emergency meeting with security service chiefs in the capital Abuja to try to prevent the violence in Nigeria's volatile 'Middle Belt' from spreading to neighbouring states.

Witnesses said Sunday's attack appeared to be a reprisal for unrest around Jos - the capital of Plateau state - in January, when clashes between Christian and Muslim mobs killed several hundred people.

Fierce competition

The latest violence in the centre of Africa's most populous nation comes at a difficult time for Jonathan, who is trying to assert his authority while ailing President Umaru Yar'Adua remains too sick to govern.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called on all sides to show restraint and urged the government to 'ensure that the perpetrators of acts of violence are brought to justice under the rule of law'.

Plateau state lies at the crossroads of Nigeria's Muslim north and Christian south and fierce competition for control of fertile farmlands between indigenous groups and settlers from the north have repeatedly triggered unrest over the past decade.

The instability underscores the fragility of Africa's top energy producer as it approaches the campaign period for 2011 elections with uncertainty over who is in charge. – Reuters