JEWS TO GO TO COLOMBIA

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25243, 23 July 1947, Page 7

JEWS TO GO TO COLOMBIA

STATEMENT ISSUED IN PARIS

PRESIDENT WARFIELD’S PASSENGERS

(Rec. 9 p.m.) LONDON, July 22. The French Foreign Office has announced that the 4500 Jews who attempted to enter Palestine from the President Warfield will be brought back to France. They will stay at Villefranche, near Nice, until arrangements are made to send them to Colombia, The majority possess Colombian visas.

The British Foreign Office has announced that the action of sending the immigrants back to France has been taken in accordance with normal international procedure and in agreement with the French Government. The diplomatic correspondent of the “Daily Telegraph’’ says: “In sending the immigrants back to France the British Government is merely returning to the pre-war practice of sending illegal immigrants back to the place they came from, This was discontinued during the war for practical reasons, but the Government did not thereby give up its right to do so, and the practice is now being revived, in this case with the agreement of the French Government. “There is still some doubt about the destination of the President Warfield’s illegal immigrants. The transports have been authorised to call, but not to land their passengers, at Villefranche. The Colombian Embassy in Paris knows nothing about plans to send the immigrants to Colombia, and is seeking instructions from Bogota.” The Jerusalem correspondent of the “Daily Express” says that unconfirmed reports say that two more illegal ships, with 4000 immigrants, have been intercepted off the Palestine coast.