The whole of San Marcelino Street was on fire. The refugees streamed past, bound for whatever place they thought they could find safety in. Some of them were with children, dogs, chickens and even piglets. Those who stopped we fed with a ball of rice and a couple of biscuits. We bandaged wounds and exchanged bits of news with the refugees. The shelling seemed to have lessened, probably because we were becoming used to it. An occasional rat-tat-tat-tat of a machine gun interrupted the shots of the snipers perched on the branches of acacia trees or crouching behind ruined walls.
An artillery shell fell a couple of meters away. Fortunately, it got imbedded in a mound of soft earth. The explosion merely gave us a shower of loose dirt.