The driver screeched to a halt. The camps are simply overwhelmed, she discovered. The first refugees to arrive got tents, and maybe they could bring a rug to sleep on, or a pot or pan or two. The later refugees arrived with nothing and there was nothing there to give them. Families sleep, sit or stand in the mud or dust all day under the rain or hot sunshine, walk a long way to draw scarce drinking water from a single well to carry back as best they can, and scrounge and scrabble for the few twigs and sticks available for building fires.
Young children become weak, sickly, smelly, and very irritable.
After only three months of these conditions, this father had snapped. Rasekh talked about two medical crises that she witnessed at the camps. One woman had cirrhosis of the liver, due to an untreated viral infection. Rasekh got her into hospital, but it was too late. She lingered for a week and then died.