STARVATION IN BIAFRA French Doctor Tells Of Children’s Plight

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31772, 31 August 1968, Page 13

STARVATION IN BIAFRA French Doctor Tells Of Children ’s Plight

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright)

PARIS, August 30.

A French Red Cross worker spoke today of Biafran children so weakened by hunger and disease that they fell unconscious on camp fires without feeling the burns.

Dr Colette Boely, who returned to Paris today after a four-day visit to Biafra, said she saw this happen in one of the 700 Biafran refugee camps. “And yet these children are privileged in comparison with those wandering through the bush,” she said. Dr Boely, who had been looking into ways of getting relief supplies into Biafra, said she was able to find an organisation capable of distributing relief, and a Biafran Red Cross airport which had been bombed could reopen immediately. It was hoped to begin a shuttle service soon between Libreville, Gabon, and Biafra to take in 40 tons of food and medical supplies a day. INVITATION TO U.N. The Nigerian Federal Government today invited the United Nations SecretaryGeneral (U Thant) and other foreign observers to visit combat zones of the civil war

to see for themselves the conduct of Federal troops. The Government said in a statement in Lagos that it would give full facilities to U Thant and a team of observers from the Organisation of African Unity, Britain, Poland, Canada and Sweden to visit areas of military operations and “observe the conduct of the Federal troops as they advance to rebel-held areas in breakaway Biafra.” The reason for the invitation was not explained, but political observers think it may be aimed at refuting Biafra’s repeated accusations that the Federal authorities are waging a war of genocide

The Federal leader (MajorGeneral Yakubu Gowon) has announced that a final military onslaught on what remains of Biafra, began last Saturday. U Thant’s special representative (Mr Neils Gussing. of Sweden) is in Lagos studying relief needs.

In Addis Ababa, there were no peace talks today because both sides were studying the proposals on relief supplies for civilians put forward by Emperor Haile Selassie yesterday. The Emperor’s new compromise proposals are understood to be for a land route and an air corridor which would come into force simultaneously. In New York, a five-nation working group of Latin American countries today held its first meeting to discuss what action the United Nations could take to bring an end to the war.

Representatives from Colombia, Mexico, Chile, Barbados and Guyana met the Chilean Mission with the mandate of “identifying areas of agreement and disagreement within the Latin American members, without consulting other regional groups.”