APPEAL FOR HELP

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30393, 18 March 1964, Page 17

APPEAL FOR HELP

Trapped |By Indians ■(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter— Copyright) LIMA, March 17. r About 40 members of a B survey party still awaited V help today, surrounded ■ by a “thousand of screamw ing Indians” deep in the & jungle of eastern Peru. | A radio message from the •arty said two members had already been killed and four (Wounded, as Indians armed \vith rifles and bows and arrows surrounded the group on a hill. A dramatic radio appeal yesterday said: “They wanted to exterminate us one by one. They are firing every five minutes. Do something, please.” The party, believed to be Peruvian, has been trapped for the last six days. The message said some members were “on the edge of madness” because of heat and rain and “thousands of Indians screaming like animals in the jungle.” Troop reinforcements left Requena—so miles from the scene—last Friday, but it was feared they would not hack their way through the dense jungle in time. Food and medical supplies have been dropped to the party, and Air Force jets have strafed the surrounding jungle in the hope of dispersing the Indians. Indian casualties have been ofiicially put at more than 30.