JOS - Muslim herdsmen disguised as soldiers butchered and then burned around a dozen Christians on Wednesday in central Nigeria, close to the site of a recent sectarian massacre, officials and witnesses said.

Most of the victims of the raid on a village in the Riyom region of Plateau state were women and children, state radio reported, as locals accused the security forces of failing to act quickly enough to prevent the slaughter.

A reporter at the scene of the carnage in Byei village said that he had counted 12 bodies which bore deep machete cuts and had been partially burned. The state information commissioner put the overall toll at 13.

Half a dozen homes had also been torched by the gang of killers, said the reporter. Surviving residents could be seen crying and wailing in grief.

On March 7 herdsmen from the mainly Muslim Fulani ethnic group launched an overnight attack on three mainly Christian Berom villages.

There have been outbreaks of violence every few years since 2001, and some commentators attributed the March 7 slaughter to revenge for the killings of Muslims by Christians in January.