‘We live in fear of a massacre’

The last report of Marie Colvin, the British war correspondent killed in recent violence in Homs.

‘We live in fear of massacre,’ in the Sunday Times.

Almost every building is pock-marked after tank rounds punched through concrete walls or rockets blasted gaping holes in the upper floors. The building I was staying in lost its upper floor to a rocket last Wednesday. On some streets whole buildings have collapsed - are there is to see are shredded clothes, broken pots and the shattered furniture of families destroyed.

It is a city of the cold and hungry, echoing to exploding shells and bursts of gunfire. There are no telephones and the electricity has been cut off. Few homes have diesel for the tin stoves they rely on for heat in the coldest winter that anyone can remember. Freezing rain fills potholes and snow drifts in through windows empty of glass. No shops are open, so families are sharing what they have with relatives and neighbours. Many of the dead and injured are those who risked foraging for food.