The World’s Latest Refugees
The effects of President Yahya Khan’s rough military action in East Pakistan are far from over. His army has caused the deaths of many of his countrymen, and its operation has made refugees of thousands more. The lives of further thousands are threatened by starvation and lack of shelter. According to Indian sources more than one million people have fled from East Pakistan, taking their economic and social problems with them. Many of these are without doubt the militants of Bangladesh seeking political refuge from the army. But the majority are innocent people seeking shelter in the hope that they can go back and continue life as before. In addition to the misery of being refugees, they have become involved in the political snarling between India and Pakistan. The world must move fast to counter economic chaos, and to provide food and shelter before the monsoon sets in.
The refugees in India are those most accessible to relief. It makes nonsense that India, with its own refugee and population problems and a frail economy, should have to cope alone with this additional burden. Even if many of those displaced are waiting only for some sort of calm before returning to their villages across the border there is a need for urgent international action to help the Indian Government bear the strain.
The bulk of the needy are still where they have always been-in East Pakistan. Those living in. the delta, for example, have no border handy that they can cross. They have probably had difficulty in receiving the aid which the Pakistani Government promised them after last November’s cyclone disaster to make! good lost harvests. Their plight emphasizes the problems of others scattered throughout an area whose economic resources, inadequate at the best of times-have been further dislocated by war. If it is hard to get rood distributed now it will be that much harder when the rains start in a month. International action must offset the vicious damage done and prevent it getting any worse. It must provide East Pakistan’s luckless citizens with food and shelter.
Reference: The Guardian, London, May 7, 1971