Today was a hard day.
Fighting had been hard on Tripoli Street, today, where I had witnessed the rebels making some gains. But arriving back at the hospital, bringing a man injured on the front-line, it was clear that fighting throughout the rest of the city had been even harder.
The rebels were making a concerted effort to consolidate their positions, but were doing so with heavy losses.
Pick-up trucks and ambulances a steady screech of tyres as they arrived outside the hospital, overwhelming the already exhausted medics working in the triage tent.
“In the theatre now, there are two amputations now” said a doctor, adding that throughout the day, he had seen a lot of gunshot wounds to the head. “This afternoon is getting worse.” The corridors of the hospital are lined with beds, the wounded spilling out from the wards.
And as the afternoon dragged on, the dead became harrowingly apparent. In the space of half an hour, three corpses were brought out of the hospital, taken away for immediate burial in a stream of wooden coffins.
The cries of la illa illa Allah never seemed to stop, as mourners and hospital staff cried out the Muslim chant of “there is no god but God”. This was pushing many here close to breaking point, as they asked “how can Qaddafi do this to his own people?”
It would be a busy night for the grave diggers, and many would wake in the morning to find their family torn apart.