Snipers Target Civilians

Minutes later, a second cop car screeched to a halt. Inside was the children’s mother, in agony from gunshot wounds in her right shoulder and leg. She was loaded on to a trolley.

After a brief examination all three were put into an ambulance and driven to the capital Tbilisi 40 miles away.

They had been ambushed a few hundred yards from the hospital as they drove through Gori’s almost-deserted streets.

Russian army stragglers were immediately blamed — but separatists from the Moscow-backed enclave of South Ossetia could have been responsible.

South Ossetia, where the war erupted on Friday, wants to break away from Georgia and there are fears gunmen have now left the region on a sick “ethnic cleansing” mission.