FAMINE ON LOMBOK 10,000 Deaths In 35 Villages

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31168, 19 September 1966, Page 17

FAMINE ON LOMBOK 10,000 Deaths In 35 Villages

<.V.Z. Press Association—Copyright >

DJAKARTA, September 18.

More than 10,000 people starved to death in 35 villages checked between last November and April on the island of Lombok, according to official figures.

Dr. Arbain Yusuf, provin-| cial health director for the island, said the figures ’were; the result of a detailed study in only 35 of more than 150 villages in the island’s I famine belt. Dr. Yusuf’s report supported a student claim from the island that more than 29,000 people died in the same period throughout the whole famine belt. Lombok, an island east of Bali and with a population of 1.5 million, is also seriously hit by disease. However, only half the island is short of food. The northern part of the island has two crops of rice a year

>and the people are hoarding it Dr. Yusuf said more than 40,000 people were facing |: starvation. He has already predicted 100,000 people will face starvation by December and that 80 per cent of them would be dead by January i unless aid came soon. The main reason for the starvation is the lack of rain on which the south relies to ' grow its one crop a year. Last year’s crop was poor and 1 the next crop will not be harvested until next May. The Government has promised a shipment of rice. This would take three weeks, said Dr. Yusuf.