BRITISH PRISONERS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 172, 23 July 1941, Page 7

BRITISH PRISONERS

Reports Of Acute Shortage Of Food In Greece CHAOTIC CONDITIONS British Official Wireless. Rec. 1 p.m. RUGBY, July 22. Reports of chaotic conditions in Greece and acute scarcity of food among the civilian population, are causing concern in Britain about the state or -- British prisoners of war, both in Greece and Crete. Red Cross and St. John Ambulance war organisations have as an immediate measure telegraphed £10.000 to the British Ambassador in Ankara and £5000 to Dr. Brunei, representative of the International Red Cross in Greece, for the purchase of any food supplies available in Turkey and Greece to supnlement the prisoners' rations. The Prisoners of War Department of the Red Cross recently stated that as far as they could judge about 9000 men wei* taken in Greece and these had now been mostly evacuated to Germany. Prisoners" in Crete, totalling approximately 13.000. were probably in the course of evacuation. The British Red Ciuss has established a reserve of about 500.000 parcels of food, as veil as considerable stores of clothing at Geneva in charge of the International Red Cross, but these cannot be dispatched to Greece as heavy German military traffic, going east* through the Balkans, has occupied all the available freight space.