CHARGE OF SLAVERY

Press, Volume XCI, Issue 27680, 9 June 1955, Page 13

CHARGE OF SLAVERY

Alleged African Traffic

(Rec. 10 p.m.) LONDON, June 8. A French Protestant clergyman yesterday alleged that hundreds of citizens from French African .possessions were being sold annually as slaves in Saudi Arabia and Yemen, the Pans correspondent of the “Daily Telegraph” reported. The clergyman, Mr Graviere, who is a member of the French Overseas Union Assembly, said the slaves were sold at between £2OO and £4OO depending on age, sex, health, and intelligence. . Mr Graviere said he thought Africans from some British possessions had also been sold into slavery. He said that most of the Africans sold in the slave markets of Jeddah, Medina, and Mecca were ostensibly accompanying their employers on Mecca pilgrimages. Most came from French Sudan, Cameroons, and Mauretania. Mr Graviere, who has just returned from a North African tour, said he based the charges on a 1953 report made by a former French Ambassador to Jeddah. The report gave details of Arabian slave markets and a list of French subjects allegedly concerned in tfee traffic. He would ask the French Government to take action and report the matter to the United Nations, said Mr Graviere.