Doctors hold their own front line

Lombrozo operating on a patient who sustained a shrapnel injury on the left part of the brain at Mechnikov Hospital in Dnipro, Ukraine. — AP

THE horrors of war arrive through the night at a hospital in eastern Ukraine, a procession of stretchers bearing limp bodies whisked from the front line.

The soldiers come with bandaged limbs soaked in blood, faces blackened with shrapnel fragments and stunned eyes fixed on the ceiling, frozen in shock. Lately, they’ve been coming with ever-greater frequency.