Horror scenes at Tripoli hospital

More than 200 decomposing bodies have been found abandoned at a hospital in a district of the Libyan capital, Tripoli, that has seen fierce fighting.



A BBC correspondent found corpses of men, women and children on beds and in the corridors of Abu Salim's hospital.



Doctors and nurses fled after clashes erupted nearby between rebel forces and those loyal to Col Muammar Gaddafi.



Some residents accused the regime of murdering those at the hospital, but it is not yet clear how exactly they died.



Meanwhile, rebel forces faced stiff resistance as they advanced on Sirte, Col Gaddafi's birthplace and the town regarded as his last stronghold.



Rebel commanders said they were consolidating their frontline at the oil port town of Ras Lanuf, after withdrawing from positions nearer Sirte to put themselves out of range of rockets fired by pro-Gaddafi forces.



The UK said its planes carried out an overnight missile attack on a large command-and-control bunker in Sirte.



There was also intense fighting near Tripoli's international airport.



In the west, the rebels took control of the Ras Jidir border crossing with Tunisia after regime loyalists fled, and then raised the pre-Gaddafi, green, red and black Libyan flag, witnesses said.'No government'



The BBC's Wyre Davies in Tripoli says the scene at the hospital in Abu Salim was one of the most appalling and distressing he had ever seen.Around the hospital, on trolleys and in corridors, there were hundreds of dead people - men, women and children, our correspondent says.



It is not known exactly who they were, but some were civilians, some fighters, some apparently African mercenaries, he adds.



Residents said some had been alive when they were brought to the hospital, albeit with very bad injuries. Others had already died.



However, the hospital was closed because nearly all medical staff had fled the fighting, and the people were left there to die, they added.



The AFP news agency reported that the hospital was occupied by pro-Gaddafi snipers on Saturday, and that it was only on Thursday after days of intense fighting that it was secured by the rebels.



The father of a 10-year-old boy who was shot in the back near Col Gaddafi's compound said he had to lie in the heat for almost a week with no help, while the stench of decomposing bodies grew around him.



"My son was wounded outside Bab al-Aziziya, but we didn't know where he had been taken," he told AFP. "It's the first time I've seen him in five days. But today we have got him back."