Food Flown To Apia

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30983, 12 February 1966, Page 3

Food Flown To Apia

(Special Crspdt. N.Z.P.A.)

APIA, Feb. 10.

Sixteen tons of food and medical supplies which arrived in Apia today by Royal New Zealand Air Force Hercules, would be distributed immediately to hospitals and schools, said the New Zealand High Commissioner, Mr Paul Gabites.

Mr Gabites said the supplies were urgently needed for babies, pregnant women and young children. "These are goods I requested from New Zealand by telegram,” Mr Gabites said.

“They are a priority list compiled by the relief committee which could not wait for sea shipment.” Aboard the si-hour flight from Whenuapai was the national commissioner of the Red Cross, Mr C. McLennan, who expects to remain in Western Samoa from two to three weeks.

Mr McLennan’s jobs will be to meet the Red Cross Society in Apia and help it coordinate relief, to assess the needs of the islanders and to provide information and photographs for the Red Cross appeal in New Zealand Also aboard the flight was Mrs M. Miaiva, a foundation member of the Red Cross in Samoa who was returning to Apia after a month-long training programme in New Zealand. The Hercules was unloaded

in about two horn's and left immediately for Nandi. It will make an overnight refuelling stop there before returning to Auckland. Australia would give £12,500 to help meet the critical shortage of food in Western Samoa, the Minister for External Affairs (Mr Paul Hasluck) said today.

Mr Hasluck said the Western Samoan Government, after an appeal to the United Nations, had already received several offers of aid. Mr Hasluck said the Australian Commissioner to Fiji was visiting Apia to discuss the offer with the Western Samoan Government.

The gift would be in the form of Australian goods and materials most suited to Samoan needs.