U.N. Requests N.Z. For More Aid For Refugees

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28528, 6 March 1958, Page 12

U.N. Requests N.Z. For More Aid For Refugees

(New Zealand Press Association)

NEW PLYMOUTH, March 5. New Zealand has been asked to give increased assistance to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, one of the commission’s officers, Mr J. B. Woodward, said in New Plymouth today. Cabinet was at present considering requests that New Zealand give greater financial aid and accept an extra 75 families, he said.

Mr Woodward, who is visiting his parents in New Plymouth, said that with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (Dr. A. Lindt) he had recently had talks with Mr Nash and other members of the Cabinet. They asked for increased support from New Zealand and, after giving the Government time to consider the proposals, Mr Woodward is to have further discussions before returning to his headquarters in Geneva in two weeks.

Mr Woodward said today that his organisation was aiming at closing the last of the refugee camps in Europe in 1960. To that end they were seeking increased support from certain countries. There were still 40,000 refugees living in the camps, the residue of Hitler’s slave labour. Many of them were children who had been born in the camps and had never known any other sort of life. It was a particularly tragic problem.

The New Zealand Government already supported the refugee organisation very generously, said Mr Woodward, but another £3s million had to be found if the camps were to be closed by 1960. New Zealand had been “a staunch and long-standing supporter” of the organisation and he had hopes that the country would be able to take the 75 additional families that had been suggested.

It was an unfortunate fact that all the able-bodied refugees had been taken as immigrants and the 40,000 that were left were not

manpower material. However, some of the children would be able to work as they grew up in the next few years. Conditions were “pretty ghastly” in the camps, said Mr Woodward. They were a blot on the map and should be wiped out as quickly as possible. The international community could not afford to have such camps so long after the war had ended.