Thousands of Syrians are fleeing across the border into Turkey from the intensifying violence in their own country. There, they fill refugee camps and hospitals while worrying about those left behind -- and wondering if leaders in Ankara will take their support to the next level.

Kadir took a bullet himself not five months ago, and his leg still drags a bit. Now his nephew Hasim has been shot, as well: three bullets to his shoulder and upper body a little less than 20 hours ago.

Kadir carried his nephew on his back, a 41-year-old man with a limp lugging a 20-year-old man through the evening and half the night, as he describes it. Going to a Syrian hospital was out of the question. "They would have instantly shot us dead," he says. Kadir was determined to reach the border with Turkey, where doctors had already helped him with his leg.

Syria's northern neighbor has become a refuge for thousands of people fleeing Bashar Assad, the dictator who has been having his own people shot down for months in a bid to cling to power. Those who have fled live in tents in refugee camps along the border, and doctors in the southern Turkish province of Hatay treat the gunshot wounds of people who have demonstrated or fought against Assad's troops -- or were simply gunned down indiscriminately on the street, as Kadir says happened to his nephew.

The flood of refugees shows no sign of abating since the situation in Syria is growing worse by the day. Activists in Homs, a stronghold for the protest movement, reported on Tuesday experiencing the heaviest shelling there in days. The establishment of a U.N. peacekeeping mission, as the Arab League has proposed, is unlikely. Such a mission is impossible without a cease-fire, said one U.S. government spokesman. In other words, the murdering in Syria will continue.