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Georgia offers ceasefire as fighting continues
(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-08-11 09:42 A photographer entering Tskhinvali with Russian troops on Sunday saw dead Georgian soldiers lying in the streets and the ruins of buildings devastated in the fighting.
Georgia and Russia have accused each other of causing widespread civilian casualties since the fighting began. Russian television repeatedly spoke of a "humanitarian catastrophe" in South Ossetia after the Georgian attack, with more than 2,000 dead and thousands homeless. A Georgian government source said on Sunday 130 Georgian civilians and military personnel had been killed and 1,165 wounded, many because of Russian bombing inside Georgia. Russia denied hitting civilian targets. Devastation Russian television showed pictures from Tskhinvali of burnt-out buildings, wounded civilians receiving medical treatment in dilapidated basements and weeping mothers complaining of a lack of food and water. "It started with severe bombing with artillery and planes and helicopters. Our boys, with their guns, could do nothing," resident Alla Dzhiloyeva told RTR state television by phone. "They bombed us so many times all the houses are destroyed... On one street there is only one wall left." Pictures on NTV television showed Tskhinvali's main hospital in ruins and most of its 200 patients crammed into the basement. Patients, many wincing, underwent treatment on tabletops in what looked like unsanitary conditions. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin cut short his visit to the Olympics on Saturday and flew to a field hospital in North Ossetia, visiting wounded troops and evacuees, and denouncing what he termed Georgia's "crimes against its own people." |
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