Corpses and destruction greet returning Fallujah residents

Departing US marines are warned that next time 'every man and woman here will hold guns'

The refugee camp in Baghdad that housed families who fled at the height of the fighting in Fallujah last month has been dismantled.

And though some refugees are still staying with relatives in cities, Fallujah is returning to life. Extended families crammed into Volkswagens can be seen waiting at the checkpoint to the city of 300,000, which in the past month has become the symbol of Iraqi resistance to the occupation.

There is much work to be done. The stench of decaying bodies is overpowering in areas of the city marked by fresh American bombardment.

Shallow graves - dug in gardens by residents who feared they would be shot by US snipers on the way to the cemetery - are slowly being exhumed.

'We are still retrieving bodies from around the city,' said Adil Ali Hamdan, a doctor's assistant at Fallujah General Hospital. The five hospitals in the city are still counting casualties, but Mr Hamdan expects the final number to be about 3,000. 'Many of them are buried in their homes,' he said.

'We have 250 confirmed dead at our hospital so far. Twenty-five per cent of those are women and children. And no one has begun to count the casualties from the air strikes,' he said, referring the US raids that took place in the northern part of the city last week.