The American government has paid $50,000 compensation for each person killed in a house-to-house shooting rampage allegedly carried out by a U.S. soldier in Afghanistan, The Telegraph reported.

The payments from the U.S. military, along with $11,000 for each person wounded, were made at the weekend during a meeting between American officials and relatives of the victims of the massacre.

Staff Sgt Robert Bales, 38, is charged with murdering 17 civilians and attempting to murder another six when he left his small base in Panjwayi district of Kandahar in the early hours of March 11.

The payments were made as American officials disclosed that they believed the suspected killer returned to his base after attacking one village, before leaving again to claim more victims in another. The two villages are more than a mile apart, leading to widespread disbelief in Afghanistan that the killings were the act of one gunman.

Four of the dead were women and nine were children, aged as young as two. Eleven came from one family.