"There have been rapes, there has been gang warfare because they have all the different street gangs in there"

AS New Orleans disintegrated in lawlessness and mayhem, a horrifying picture emerged of the squalor, rape and gunfire battles in the stadium over the past four days.

Some 25,000 people - many of whom lost their homes to Hurricane Katrina - hunkered down with little food and little water, overflowing toilets, stifling heat and the unbearable stench of human waste.

Children slept in pools of urine. Crack vials littered the bathrooms. Bloodstains smeared the walls near vending machines that had been pried open. Gunfire has ricocheted down the corridors.