All the people who had an opportunity to flee are gone. We stay because we have no money, no relatives, no friends. Look at us. In an adjoining room, six elderly blind men and women are standing in the darkness, bundled in worn winter coats. A man with a weathered face and a fur hat waits, squinting, clutching a ball of yarn and walking stick.
Nobody moves or appears coherent.
They cannot leave Grozny, and are being cared for by the remaining families in the building. We leave them a bottle of painkillers. Russian bombardments are unrelenting. They take place all day, all night, seven days a week. First, an observation plane appears in the sky, searching for clusters of people.