It's win or die for Libyans in Misrata

To move through the battlefront areas of Misrata, you have to make your way among backyards, alleyways and broken homes, reports CBS News correspondent Allen Pizzey.

It's never exactly clear where the lines are and where Muammar Qaddfi's snipers are hiding.

Even the fighters argue over which bit of rubble is safe - young men with small arms and no real training against an enemy with heavy weapons.

As dire as things are in Misrata, the rebels are winning by the simple fact of holding on. No one in Misrata has any reason to believe that if Qaddafi's forces take the city they will show any mercy, which means surrender is not an option. It's a case of win - or die.

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And dying is easy to do here. The main hospital has been evacuated. Triage is now done in a tent in the grounds of a private one in a slightly safer area. The wounded come in on a regular basis, victims of gunshots, shelling and rocket fire. The few remaining doctors are stretched to the limit.

"We need peace," said Dr. Hatem Bib Sasi, a surgeon. "That's what we need, but we need bigger space, more facilities, more staff. All kind of staff is gone. We need drugs."

Some parts of the city actually seem more or less normal, until you remember that even kids playing are risking random shelling.

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There's even a kind of rush hour. But looks are deceptive. The lines at the few gas stations still open stretch for half a block. Small markets still operate, but the selection is limited. Life has been reduced to the basics.

"Really we have very bad situation about bread, water, dirty water, electro light," said Mohamed Abdul Rahman. "It's a very bad situation."

But the rebels have been quick to learn and apply some techniques of siege warfare. Checkpoints are built as barricades so streets can be defended. Roads to key places like the hospital have been split to make an emergency lane.

No one is quite sure how many people are left in Misrata, but conventional wisdom puts it at about 300,000 - half the peacetime population. And amazingly, there is no rush to get out.

Basem Esriti risks the streets to give journalists free rides.

"I want the world to see the massacres Qaddafi has been doing," Basem said in Arabic. "He has been killing women and children."

Cut off on three sides, the only sure way out of the city is on a stretcher. Seriously wounded victims who are stable enough to travel are sent to Benghazi on a ferry evacuating migrant workers. But the emergency clinic in the cabin area can only handle about 50 patients per trip.

In a place where the front lines are a few hundred yards apart, the quota is easily filled.