World leaders are urging Russia to agree to a cease-fire with the former Soviet state Georgia, in an effort to stop the bloody battling that has been raging in the region since Friday.

Click here to read The New York Times’s latest update on the conflict.

So far there are reports of hundreds of innocent civilian casualties from the conflict; meanwhile, thousands are said to be fleeing their homes. Images and video coming from the area show homes and apartment buildings in ruins, some still on fire, and bloodied and dead bodies in the streets. Here are a few media reports on some of the female civilians being impacted by the conflict.

Zema Kulumbegova, a 43-year-old part-time English teacher, broke away from South Ossetia, where the air strikes, artillery fire and heavy rockets poured into the region. She told MSNBC.com that when the shooting started last week, she, her husband and two children took shelter in the wine cellar of their two-story home in South Ossetia’s capital, Tskhinvali. They expected they could go outside by early Friday morning but the noise of rockets warned them to stay inside. Kulumbegova also told MSNBC that a rocket hit their neighbor’s house and started a fire. "It’s amazing that we weren’t all killed," she said. Kulumbegova, her husband, her 90-year-old father and three girls, Ina, 14, Lina, 12, and Marina, 11, finally left their home and were last reported on their way to a safety camp in Russia.

Marina Dudayeva, a woman in her early 20s, fled from Tskhinvali wearing only her bed clothes and a pair of plastic slippers, reports MSNBC.com. On Sunday, she found herself at a leafy, run-down summer camp near Alagir in the Russian region of North Ossetia.

Because of the fighting, Sofia Mamukashvili’s, 80, has now outlived her 21-year-old grandson. Georg, a soldier, was walking down the street from the family’s home when bombs exploded, killing him and more than 20 others. The explosions set the neighborhood ablaze and blasted out the windows in the town of Gori, about 15 minutes from South Ossetia’s capital, the Associated Press reported. As their town turns to ashes, Georg’s family vows to remain.

"We are waiting here to die," Nana Mamukashvili, the daughter of Sofia and mother of Georg, told the AP. "This place is going to oblivion."