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Estimates by officials and human rights groups of the number of dead have ranged from 300 to more than 500 in the attack here and in two nearby villages, Zot and Ratsat.

The people here spoke of a well-organized gang of dozens who stealthily surrounded the village before dawn. They had come on foot from the low hills surrounding this rocky plateau, Muslim herdsmen apparently bent on revenge for similar killings in January and angry over what one rights group said were cases of cattle rustling.

A separate corps — men with machetes, or “cutlasses” as some villagers described them — began their work. “I saw them with very long, white swords,” Mr. Pam said. “Some were dressed in black, and some in camouflage.” The men were ruthlessly efficient, and in halting sentences the villagers described the carnage that followed. “They killed my daughter and my son,” Ezekiel Chwang said. “It was Sunday night. They surrounded our house. They were shouting.” He climbed into a tree to escape the marauders, and dropped back down after they had left, to find a horrific scene in his home. The men, he said, had discovered his 6-year-old daughter and 4-year-old son sleeping in the bedroom. They slit their necks with a machete, then set them on fire.

human rights experts on this region said it was all too reminiscent of previous episodes, including the killing of Muslims by Christians in January. “There many similarities as far as the targeting of unarmed residents, including women and children,” said Eric Guttschuss of Human Rights Watch.

Perhaps 3,000 have died in these ethnic-religious conflicts in the region surrounding this village since 2001, in the estimates of rights groups. There have been investigations and commissions of inquiry, but little retribution. The police here, known for their summary methods, say they have already arrested around 100 people in connection with Sunday’s killings.

Bisi Olateru-Olagbegi, executive director of the Women's Consortium of Nigeria (WOCON) and board member of WILDAF, said educating girls with both formal and practical education was key to addressing the gender imbalances and breaking the cycle of poverty. "When a women is empowered and she can assert her rights in the community she can rise up to any position and be part of decision making and raise the status of women," Olateru- Olagbegi said.

Although enrolment levels have risen in many developing countries since 2000, UNICEF estimated there were still more than 100 million children out of school in 2008, 52 percent of them girls and the majority living in sub-Saharan Africa.

Subsequently there has been a measurable increase in girls attending school, a trend that has led to fewer early marriages and teenage pregnancies as well as a reduction in the number of youths who are trafficked and prostituted. In spite of the gains, however, girls are still largely underrepresented in the science and technology fields. "Even when girls go to school there is a bias that girls are not supposed to learn science and technology; they're still doing the social sciences and humanities," Olateru-Olagbegi said. "They don't think that the faculties of girls are developed enough and it's mere discrimination."