DIAMOND RUSH TRAGEDY.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 136, 11 June 1927, Page 11

DIAMOND RUSH TRAGEDY.

PEOPLE "DYING LIKE RATS." PLIGHT OF CHILDREN. A sordid story of life on the new diamond diggings at Bakers, some two and a-half miles from (Jrasfontein, South Africa, is givn by a local resident, who has returned to Durban, Natal, because he "was unable to stand the ghastly squalor any longer " "The cotditions there are absolutely awful," he said in an interview. "People are dying like rats from enteric fever, the victims being mostly children of parents who are themselves in pitiable circumstances." This terrible condition of affairs he ittrilmted to the .ack of sanitation and • " 1 >!-<»ive supplv of water. "I was warned when I spoke before I .eft ot my intention to talk of what was happening," the traveller added, significantly, "but in my opinion the day of secrecy is past. "Men—and. in many cases, their families—eat, sleep, work, and live entirely on the 40 square yards allowed to them for mining. There is a total absence of sanitary conveniences," he said, "and with water costing £5 to £0 for the amount that a one-ton lorry can carry over an almost impossible road, it will be realised how serious is the position of affairs. "The people at Bakers are in a terrible state, and thousands are starving or living on mealies, the majority of them having only one meal a day." A few diamonds were being found at Bakers, he admitted, but only a very few. Most of the inhabitants were in too bewildered a state of mind through the awful conditions to kno%v what to do, and native servants were clearing out dailv.