**Nigerian police say 49 people are to be charged with murder after communal violence left scores of villagers dead.**Most of those facing charges are Muslims from the Fulani group, police spokesman Mohammed Lerama told the BBC.
The number of those arrested since the killings near the city of Jos has risen to 200, he said.
Police say 109 people - thought to be mostly Christians - died in Sunday’s bloodshed. Earlier reports put the toll at more than 500.
The violence followed sectarian killings near Jos in January that left more than 300 dead, most of them believed to be Muslims.
Plateau State, in central Nigeria, sits between the mainly Christian south and the predominantly Muslim north.
International pressure
Officials say police and troops are patrolling the area to prevent further trouble.
Chief of police for Plateau State Ikechukwu Aduba said on Wednesday he had asked for extra help.
“Our urgent patrol efforts after the incident… have yielded good results,” he said.
“We have requested reinforcements, and have been reassured… that reinforcement is on its way.”
However, international pressure is growing on the Nigerian government to take further action.
On Wednesday Pope Benedict XVI denounced the bloodshed as “atrocious”.
He urged civil and religious leaders “to work towards security and peaceful co-existence”.
The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions called on the Nigerian government to “move swiftly” to prevent further attacks.
Earlier, the governor of Plateau State, Jonah Jang, said security lapses had worsened the carnage in the three villages targeted.
He said he had warned the army about reports of suspicious people with weapons hours before they attacked, but they failed to take action.
“Three hours or so later, I was woken by a call that they [armed gangs] have started burning the village and people were being hacked to death,” Mr Jang said.
“I tried to locate the commanders. I couldn’t get any of them on the telephone.”
Mercenaries
Acting President Goodluck Jonathan has sacked the country’s national security adviser, Sarki Mukhtar, in an apparent response to the killings.
But the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, said the villages should have been properly protected after the January killings.
The head of the northern area of Nigeria’s Christian Association has said he believed mercenaries were involved.
Saidu Dogo told the BBC that fighters from neighbouring Chad and Niger took part in the violence.
State information commissioner Gregory Yenlong said on Monday that more than 500 people were killed. That figure was also given by religious leaders and rights activists.
But state police commissioner Ikechukwu Aduba says 109 people are known to have died.