RATS AGGRAVATE FAMINE IN JAVA

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30368, 18 February 1964, Page 13

RATS AGGRAVATE FAMINE IN JAVA

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter —Copyrighi) SEMARANG (Central Java), February 16. A million people are facing starvation after the longest drought and the worst rat plague within living memory in densely populated central Java, according to the deputy-governor of the region, Mr Soejono Atm.

Twelve thousand people | are now being treated for! malnutrition in provincial government hospitals and I special clinics. Fifty persons have died this year while undergoing medical treatment for j hunger. Mr Soejono said 15.000 peasant farmers and their families have deserted their barren ricefields in outlying districts to become beggars scrounging for food in Semarang, the provincial capital. Unless the drought broke soon and emergency rice and other food supplies arrived

from other provinces, the fate of families in areas of the north and south coast was in the balance, he said. With rice production last year below the 1961 level and only two-thirds of the lowered target, central Java has been receiving subsidised ; food “injections” from the central Government in Djakarta. Officials in Semarang say

they have received only 20.000 tons—a quarter of the amount promised by Djakarta. An emergency “injection” of 20,000 tons also failed to arrive. Mr Soejono told correspondents that about 3531 b of subsidised rice for each person was needed each year but that only about 1281 b a person was received in 1963.