Chilling eyewitness accounts of the cost of the Georgia conflict

Up to 40,000 refugees were on the move, some north to Russia, some south into Georgia, crammed into ramshackle cars or on foot.

Many were struggling to carry their possessions in rough packages on their backs.

A burned out vehicle lies next to a smouldering apartment building in Gori, Georgia, after the area was bombed by Russian aircraft

The death toll could be 2,000 in all, perhaps even more.

In the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvili, which was first bombarded by Georgian forces then the scene of intense fighting between Georgian and Russian troops, an evacuation of children and some women has seen families torn apart, not knowing whether their relatives are safe.

Elina, 22, left the city with her eight-monthold daughter Diana, while her husband Garik, 25, stayed on in the midst of the bombings.

'I don't know what has happened to him,' she wept at a refuge in Beslan, southern Russia, scene of the 2004 school terrorist tragedy.

'I told him no way I would leave him but he said I must take our baby to safety.'

A teacher, Inga Dzhiloyeva, 44, who ferried a group of about 50 children out of Tskhinvili as Georgian bombs rained down, said almost none of them knew the fate of their parents.

'We hear the reports of 2,000 dead or more than that. We can only pray. The children are so frightened.

'There is no good news from home. My home has been razed, like most others in this carnage.

A column of Russian tanks rolls along a road in South Ossetia

'The kids are crying at nights, missing their parents and grandparents.

'I'm scared to think how many of them, playing in the yard now, are orphans, and don't know it.'

Mzia Sabashvili, who lives in a village near Tskhinvili, said: 'I saw the Russian helicopters swoop down and bomb us.

'It was terrifying so I hid in the basement for three days. I know that lots of my neighbours are dead, I have no idea who is left.'

A Georgian woman pushes her belongings in a wheelbarrow along the road from Tskinvali to Gori

She fled into Georgia to Tbilisi. Others made it to Russia.

'We have nowhere to go, I don't want to be standing here helpless, but we have nowhere else to go,' she said.

A man called Pavlik, fleeing the Russian onslaught in South Ossetia and in deep shock, close to tears, said: 'They bombed us, we're being driven away.

'We don't know where we're running to. Who'll take us in? The place was in flames and we couldn't stay.'

In the Georgian town of Poti, a strategically vital oil port on the Black Sea, a 27-year-old woman called Samira told of seeing Russian bombs rain down close to her flat.

Samira, pictured on the beach, said she saw explosions and fires in the oil port of Poti on the shores of the Black Sea

'About midnight I heard a very loud bang. I ran to the window and saw raging fires and explosions in the port nearby - there was the deafening sound of the explosions.'

She rushed outside for safety fearing that 'if the missiles hit the oil tanks, the whole whole port will go up in flames'.

Outside she saw her neighbours.

'People were crying, screaming,' she said.

'We were screaming from the sheer horror, girls around me were crying and desperately trying to calm the young kids down.

'The phone lines were not working, there was no TV or radio signal. No one had an idea about what was happening.'

Running for cover, she came across a friend who was badly wounded. 'His ribs were broken, his head and lungs injured.'

Near her, one missile remained unexploded. Sappers came to defuse it.

'People were loading their cars and going out to the villages for safety. Yesterday there was shooting.

'My granny's friend is Ossetian, we are Russians, our relatives are Georgians and Ukrainian, who cares about the nationalities?

'Please can this war stop. Please can there be no more deaths. Somebody told here that this is a punishment for Georgians. But what for?

'Are Georgian people monsters? Don't they have same colour blood as the rest of us do?

'It is heartbreaking to see our elderly people in tears when they hear what's happening. It's impossible to look at the horrified, bewildered eyes of our children.'

Tamara Melua, great aunt of pop singer Katie, questioned why the Georgian city of Gori, in the centre of the country, was attacked by the Russians

In Tbilisi, Tamara Melua, 73, great aunt of British pop star Katie Melua, said: 'It's awful. It's a full scale war against us.

'Just why did Russian army need to bomb Gori which is in the middle of Georgia and miles away from Ossetia?

'People are panicking. I saw an interview with one Russian pilot, who is now captured by the Georgians. He said: "I had an order to bomb".

'I'm so shocked. Our sea port and oil reservoirs in Poti were bombed and I heard that Batumi port is going to be bombed, to cut us off completely from the food supply

'Why on earth are the Russians are doing it to us?

'Just how do Russia expect us to react? To sit down and shut up? No way!

'My Ketino (Katie in Georgian) is phoning us every day to check we're all right.

'She is going mad from worrying for us and from the total absurdity of what's happening.

'She was due to come and see us later this month - but how can she?'