Church Call To Aid Starving

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31754, 10 August 1968, Page 13

Church Call To Aid Starving

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) GENEVA (Switzerland), August 9.

The World Council of Churches today issued a global appeal for action to alleviate the widespread starvation in Nigeria and Biafra.

The Rev. Dr Eugene Carson Blake, the council's general secretary, urged that immediate relief of starvation be placed ahead of a cease-fire and political settlement on the agenda of the peace conference now in progress in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. He called upon the 235 member churches of the World Council to press their Governments toward these ends. Dr Blake also asked the churches to request their Governments to “use diplomatic pressures on both belligerents to open up adequate channels of relief for the immediate use of the voluntary agencies

which have stockpiled nearby large amounts of desperately needed supplies.”

Dr Blake said that “Governments generally have avoided their own responsibility in the humanitarian cause.” He said the Governments had designated voluntary organisations and church groups as channels of relief to the stricken people while “knowing very well that without strong governmental and political action the Red Cross, World Council of Churches and even U.N.I.C.E.F, cannot in fact deliver food and medicine to the starving.” Dr Blake said steps should be taken to stop the transport of arms to either side “in favour of massive governmental and inter-governmental relief supplies.”

He also called on the churches to pray for the “people and leaders on both sides,” and “for those in Addis Ababa who are seeking to make peace.”