CHOLERA THREATENING EAST PAKISTAN
REFUGEES
250,000 People Cross into Nadia District
CALCUTTA, INDIA- West Bengal’s Helth Minister Zainal Abedin has appealed to foreign counties for medical supplies following reports that 1000 East Pakistani refugees have died in a cholera epidemic in the Nadia District of West Bengal.
Accroding to officials from the district, which bordrs on East Pakistan and is about 60 miles (100kms) north of the West Bengal capital of Calcutta, other deaths were still coming in.
from Abedin said Wednesday night the Basirhat area, south east of Calcutta and Murshidabad district, have also been affected by the epidemic.
The Minister said he had also received reports from across the border that cholera was raging there in epidemic proportions.
At laeast 250,000 refugees have crossed into the Nadia district since the martial law crackdown in East Pakistan on March 25. India aks Japan for help.
India has asked japan for financial and other assistance for refugees who have fled from the fighting in East Pakistan, the Japanese Foreign Ministry said in Tokyo Thursday.
ghin The Ministry said the request was contained in a personal letter from Prime Minister India Gandhi to her Japanese counterpart Eisaku Sato.
The letter was handed over to Foreign Minister Kiichi, Aichi Wednesday by the Indian ambassador in Japan V.H. Coelbo.
The Foreign Ministry spokesman, Tsutomu Wada, said the Indian request would be considered by the Japanese Government after the expected visit here of an Indian ministerial mission.
Wada said the visit of the mission was mentioned in Mrs. Gandhi’s letter, but no date mentioned.
Mrs. Gandhi said she was seeking help from friendly nations because of a flood of refugees from East Pakistan now gathering on Indian territory.These refugees were Pakistan’s responsibility, she added.
Kennedy urged immediate aid
In Washington Senator Edward Kennedy (Democrat, Massachusetts) Wednesday called on the United States and the United Nations to take immediate steps to aid over four million refugees from East Pakistan now in India.
In a Senate speech, he warned that a major tragedy is developing because of the fighting in East Pakistan and facilities to care for them is the lack of food and other things in India.
“How much longer will the world stand idle while the region plunges towards the brink of disaster?” Senator Kennedy said in his Senate speech. “How much longer will the united Nations study the problem, when humanitarian needs are so clearly evident”
“And how much longer will the Government of Pakistan claim that conditions are “normal” in East Pakistan, when each day sees tens of thousands of its citizens fleeing across the border into India?”
It is “bitterly disgraceful” that those who are best placed to provide the most help to East Pakistani refugees in India have been most reluctant to do so, the nationally circulated newspaper “The Australian” said Thursday.
“The silence is shattering”, the newspaper said in an editorial headed “They’re only wogs anyway”.
“The thought of what the refugees and their involuntary hosts are going through is bad enough: the prospect of what the result might be horrifying”. the paper said. “It’s all but impossible to visualize the full horror of, what is happening in a place that has already had more than its share of misery”.
The Sydney Morning Herald said in an editorial that the outbreak of cholera in the area is a new touch of horror to the tragedy in Bengal.”
“Clearly a vast international effort is needed immediately to help India-firstly for humanitarian reasons: secondly, because the financial burden will become intolerable if the number of refugees continues to rise: and thirdly, because the very presence of the refugees must exacerbate the political tensions between India and Pakistan”, the newspaper said.
“The appearance of cholera, its spread across the border and the real danger that it may reach the cauldron of Calcutta 60 miles away should alert the nations of the world to the urgency of the measures needed”, the Herald said, -Rtr.
The Djakarta Times, 5.6.1971
সূত্র: আন্তর্জাতিক গণমাধ্যম ও মুক্তিযুদ্ধ ১৯৭১ . ১ম খণ্ড – মুনতাসীর মামুন