Die-hard secret police forces loyal to deposed President Nicolae Ceausescu engaged army units in fierce firefight battles Monday while doctors scrambled desperately to treat the wounded.
Timisoara, provincial capital of Timis province near the Hungarian border, was the scene of the outbreak of Romania's revolution last week, when the hated Securitate forces opened fire on a mass demonstration, killing thousands.On Christmas Day, most of the fighting in the town seemed to center around the Hotel Continental. The downton hotel is close to where most of the Securitate have their private homes.
Pro-democracy troops were gathered inside the hotel, trying to get at snipers who had taken up positions in a nearby department store.
There were not many snipers, the soldiers said, but a few seemed capable of unleashing massive amounts of gunfire.
Stray bullets flew into the hotel, wounding a young Czech medical student and forcing occupants to take refuge below the hotel stairs.
Outside, medical convoys from Hungary dodged through the streets, trying to reach Timisoara's hospital, where only 12 doctors battled desperately to cope with casualties.
The lack of training of the regular Romanian army was painfully clear. Most of the soldiers were young, inexperienced and tired.
Most had not slept for three to four days. They were ill-equipped and had not been trained for house-to-house combat, preferring to hole up in safe positions and blaze away continuously at where they thought the "terrorists-' - as the Securitate men are now being called - were hidden.
The soldiers, who have sided with the pro-democracy forces, were equipped mainly with Soviet-made Kalashnikov rifles. In the main square stood two T-33 tanks and an anti-aircraft gun. From time to time, the tanks fired at the die-hard loyalists.
In front of the military academy Sunday, arrested members of the security forces were marched inside for imprisonment. One tried to hide his face from the crowd but had his hands torn away from his head.
Despite the fighting, Romanians were determined to celebrate their new-found freedom to have a Christmas. Citizens of Timisoara erected a Christmas tree in front of the Continental Hotel. And Monday morning they flocked to the town's cathedral to celebrate Christmas Mass - just a few yards from the home of pastor Laszlo Tokes, the churchman whose arrest sparked last Sunday's fateful demonstration.