An Amish community in the eastern U.S. state of Pennsylvania has buried four of the five children killed by a gunman in an attack on a one-room schoolhouse this week.
Mourners headed to Thursday's ceremonies in the town of Nickel Mines on foot and in dozens of horse-drawn buggies, a common mode of transportation for the Amish. Two of those buried were sisters.
The fifth funeral is planned for Friday.
A local milk truck driver, Charles Carl Roberts, invaded the Amish school on Monday and allowed the boys and several adult women to leave. Police say he lined up the girls, shot 10 of them and then committed suicide.
The five other girls survived the shooting but were seriously injured. Media reports say preparations have been made to take one of them off life support and bring her home to die.
Authorities say the attacker claimed in notes and in a phone call to his wife during the siege that he had molested two young relatives 20 years ago, and that he was tormented by dreams of molesting again. Authorities also say the killer expressed self-loathing, a hatred of God and sadness over the death of a prematurely born daughter nine years ago.
The Amish community is a pacifist Christian minority that lives a mainly rural lifestyle that stresses humility and rejects many of the trappings of modern life.
The gunman was not Amish. The shooting was the third in a U.S. school in a week.Some information for this report was provided by AP, AFP and Reuters.