In Tripoli Hospital, Horror

Out of Tripoli, a sobering reminder of the cost of war: hundreds of corpses, abandoned and decomposing, in a hospital. The BBC reports on the horrifying scene at the Abu Salim hospital, where 200 bodies of men, women, and children are found on gurneys and in corridors, and doctors and nurses are nowhere to be seen. They fled after clashes erupted, and it's unclear how those who remained died; some locals accuse Gadhafi's forces of murdering them.

What is clear is the horror, reports the BBC's Wyre Davies, who calls it one of the "most distressing sites" he has ever seen and describes the smell as appalling. Says a local, "These bodies have been here in the hospital for five days. Nobody has taken care of them, to bring them to the mortuary, to identify them, to bury them." The BBC notes that locals are apparently trying to clean up the mess, which Davies describes as a "huge task." (More Tripoli stories.)