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Turkish homeless man burns to death after being neglected

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Friday, January 19, 2007

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On one of the very crowded streets of Istanbul, Turkey, an elderly homeless man died of burns thought to have been caused by a fire he lit to warm himself. The police officers who came to help could not extinguish the fire with the small bottles of water which they had.

The man was seen earlier in one of the most crowded streets of Istanbul screaming "I do not have a blanket, someone stole my blanket!". He was offered a cookie and a coat by two passers-by before someone called an ambulance. He was refused admittance to two different hospitals because he lacked identification, and the ambulance eventually left him where he was picked up.

Witness Accounts

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He was shaking. He couldn't walk. I brought him 15 - 20 empty boxes and started a fire for him to get warm. I put my coat on him, he was wet. They told us that he died in the morning.

 
 

He died in front of everyone's eyes. Like an animal. What kind of a government is this? He was shaking like a leaf. He was purple all over because of the cold. His clothes were smoking. My friends thought he was burning. It was that night's dew that was evaporating... We are ignorant, we didn't know. But someone else called for an ambulance. They came, this guy can in fact walk. He is sane. But that day he was almost unconscious and he couldn't walk. We carried him to the ambulance and thought he was saved. They brought him back an hour later. I asked him what happened. He told me that "they didn't want to provide care because I didn't have an ID to show." For God's sake, what kind of a government is this?

 
 

I just saw him the other day. I gave him a cookie. He thanked, but didn't accept. He was shaking, miserable. I would have taken him home, only if I knew.

 

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  This page is archived, and is no longer publicly editable.
Articles presented on Wikinews reflect the specific time at which they were written and published, and do not attempt to encompass events or knowledge which occur or become known after their publication.

Got a correction? Add the template {{editprotected}} to the talk page along with your corrections, and it will be brought to the attention of the administrators.

Please note that due to our archival policy, we will not alter or update the content of articles that are archived, but will only accept requests to make grammatical and formatting corrections.

Note that some listed sources or external links may no longer be available online due to age.

The text of this article is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License
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