The extract begins, 'Despite the cold and hunger...' and ends, ' 'Baaaa,' said a Turkish soldier, prodding him with a stick.'
- The refuges experience cold and hunger but their biggest problem is clean water.
- The refuges are exhausted
- Snow is melting and snow is dirty and polluted
- Water is suitable for washing feet and clothes. But not suitable for cooking or drinking.
- People are so desperate they try and cook without water
- It is like people have gone back in time to a more barbaric and savage age
- Local aid is not getting through to the refugees
- Non essential aid is rejected in the desperate panic for food
- Aid is not properly targeted at the actual needs of the refugees and is therefore inappropriate. This adds to the problems of the refugees and aid workers trying to help
- The Turkish soldiers are more interested in securing the refugees on the mountain - stopping them from leaving the mountain - rather than helping and looking after the refugees
- The relations between the soldiers and refugees is very problematic
- The refuges feel they have moved from one prison to another
- No one is allowed off the mountainside
- The soldiers offer no support to the refugees
- Instead they are beaten
- The refugees claim that the soldiers are open to being bribed
- There are reports that refugees have been killed
- The refugees are highly educated, sophisticated, middle class
- There is no common language between refugees and soldiers
- Abandoned child
