Shamkjuli - Rina Vor was putting her four young children to sleep in her village in India's remote northeast when she heard the gunfire. She gathered the children and ran for safety.
On Thursday she sat huddled with her children in a church along with hundreds of other survivors of a rebel massacre that killed 72 Adivasi tribe members.
The attacks took place late Tuesday in Assam state's Sonitpur and Kokrajhar districts when police said rebels belonging to a faction of the National Democratic Front of Bodoland opened fire in five coordinated attacks.
The area of Shamukjuli saw some of the worst violence where 26 people were killed in a single attack.
Now Vor and others like her are seeking shelter in the church and a nearby school, too afraid to return home but also worried about their homes and belongings.
“There will be no celebrations for Christmas for us,” she said as she wept.
The Adivasis are a mix of Hindus and Christians, and many like Vor were preparing for Christmas when the attack took place.
In the school, 7-year-old Sanjlai Hemrom, looking afraid and traumatized, sat silently with his younger brother. Villagers said the boys lost both parents in the attacks.
On Thursday, a curfew remained in the affected districts but there were no fresh reports of violence, said S.N. Singh, a local police official.
Bodo rebels have been fighting for a separate homeland for their indigenous tribe, which makes up 10 percent of Assam's 33 million people. They have staged attacks against both Adivasi and Muslim settlers in violence that has left at 10 000 people dead, most of them civilians, in the last three decades. In May, the same rebels group shot and killed more than 30 Muslims.
Control over land and jobs are at the heart of the ethnic violence.
Many of the dead in Tuesday's attacks included women and children, police said. The rebels may have been provoked by heavy losses they suffered recently as police intensified operations against the group, Singh said.
There were concerns the violence could spill over.
Following the attacks, angry Adivasis surrounded a police station in Sonitpur on Wednesday and attempted to attack the officers inside, police said. Police opened fire, killing three, Singh said.
He also said there were incidents of Bodo homes being attacked, but troops had managed to control the situation.
India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi has condemned the attacks, and the Home Ministry rushed several thousand federal paramilitary troops to the region.
Dozens of rebel groups have been fighting the government and sometimes each other for years in seven states in northeast India. They demand greater regional autonomy or independent homelands for the indigenous groups they represent.
The rebels accuse the federal government of exploiting the region's rich mineral resources but neglecting the local people.
Sapa-AP