Earlier this week we mentioned the story of a young boy whose mother had confined him to their home during rioting in Guinea. Desperate for the toilet, he momentarily stepped outside and was shot.

But it seems you're not even safe from gunfire if you stay locked indoors.

"I was woken by a stray bullet coming through the roof," says Yari, a young woman who was hit as she slept in her home in a shanty area of the capital Conakry.

She escaped with a wound to the arm, but a neighbour was found dead in his bed, killed by another loose bullet that had penetrated his tin-roofed house.

Well over 100 people have died this year in clashes between protesters and security forces in what Human Rights Watch (HRW) calls a bloodbath. Almost all have been civilians - many of them bystanders.

But not all the bullets are stray.

Soldiers, conducting house-to-house searches this week, have gone on looting sprees, taking phones, cameras and cash, HRW says.

In some cases they have shot and wounded householders who objected to their belongings being stolen. Other people have been beaten with clubs and rifle butts.

There are also reports that soldiers are raping women in the capital, the rights group says.

The troops were sent in this week as Guinea's President Lansana Conte imposed martial law and a draconian curfew to try to crush a wave of protests against his 23-year rule and a general strike that has paralysed the country.

"Under the guise of re-establishing law and order, they're acting like common criminals, beating, robbing and brutalising the population they're supposed to protect," says HRW's Africa director Peter Takirambudde.

HRW says the security forces are using martial law as an excuse to terrorise ordinary Guineans, many of whom are now locking themselves inside their homes.

And it's not just residents in the big towns who are feeling trapped.

Guinea is host to some 31,000 refugees from Liberia, Sierra Leone and Ivory Coast. With the end of wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone, many are waiting to go home, but the unrest has disrupted repatriations and restricted aid workers' access to the camps.

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