In streets of Gori, grief and resolve
GORI, Georgia - In front of a destroyed apartment block, a man sat clutching the body of his dead brother, trying to clean blood from his face.
Nearby, a woman knelt screaming over the body of another man killed in the Russian bombing raid.
Covered in blood, an elderly woman stared into the distance. A man sat by the roadside with his head in his hands.
Those who could scrambled to flee the town with whatever they could pack in their cars yesterday.
"I can't understand their logic. They are bombing everything. Why are they bombing civilians?" said Nick Kipshidze, a local doctor.
The normally sleepy town of Gori, birthplace of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, had never expected to come under attack.
The panic after the bombing was a reflection of the shock in Georgia at the ferocity of Russia's response to its attempt to win back control of breakaway South Ossetia from Russian-backed separatists.
A plume of smoke rose after a bomb hit a block of apartments in Gori, a few miles from South Ossetia. It was unclear what the intended target of the strike had been.
Five bodies could be seen in the wreckage. A Red Cross official told Reuters he had counted 17 bodies at a local morgue. It was not clear how many had died in the apartment bombing.
Georgia and Russia came into direct conflict over South Ossetia this week after Tbilisi launched a military offensive to regain control over the separatist region.
Despite the shock, many were in a defiant mood and spoke up for President Mikheil Saakashvili over the assault launched on Friday to gain control over South Ossetia.
He has "done the right thing," said Tamila Gordeziani as she walked hand-in-hand with her grandson. "It's our land and our people. Russia is in the wrong, and we need to finish this."
Giga Kvenetadze, 30, owns a music studio. He had lived in Russia and had many Russian friends. "To fight Russia is crazy," he said.
"But I do support Saakashvili and his aim of having a fully independent country not controlled by Russia or the United States. And what Russia is doing is wrong. They must stop."
