Defeated by the clumsy might of South Africa, Maseru last night smouldered into devastation.
At the single-storey Queen Elizabeth II hospital, one of the last buildings still intact on the main street, Kingsway, a dozen medical staff members and two priests trampled through blood, excrement and vomit as they attempted to help an endless stream of casualties.
Lesotho has no fire brigade. Two days into the South African-led attempt to quash popular and military opposition to its government, the hospital has no medicines, and the people have no food.
Yet in the hills on the outskirts of the city, 800 South African and Botswana troops persisted with their discredited operation, relentlessly pounding the Makoanyane barracks with mortar until reports, amid continuing sniper fire late yesterday, that they had fallen.
South African sources said 49 soldiers had died, including members of the Lesotho Defence Forces.
Two technical college students, Josias (18) and Evodia (23), wandered through Maseru looking for transport and food. "The South Africans want Lesotho to be their 10th province. Maybe there are minerals here which we do not know about," said Evodia.
In the country's disputed elections on May 23rd, both students had voted for the Lesotho Congress for Democracy.
In half an hour yesterday morning at the hospital three civilians died, adding to a tally kept by Dr Piet McPherson, the superintendent, of eight dead after treatment and 82 injuries, 36 of them from gunshot wounds.
Dr McPherson said: "Most of the doctors, who are foreign, have left. The staff at the hospital have not slept for 48 hours and, because of car hijackings and the danger in the streets, no one is coming to work. We have a severe shortage of medicines."
Across the road Mr Ashraf Abubaker stood on the forecourt of his Caltex petrol station and fired his Kommando machinegun at suspected looters. "I have no choice, there is no law here. My family has been here for three generations and our businesses are devastated," he said.
From time to time a Botswana armoured personnel carrier would drive past, its crew shooting into the air at the sight of looters. Farther down Kingsway some youths were clearing the Metro hyper market, a building the size of two football fields. Later they burnt it down.
All that was left last night was a city which must be rebuilt from scratch in an impoverished country which is no closer to political peace than it was before the fires were lit.