Mercy Mission In Biafra

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31935, 12 March 1969, Page 7

Mercy Mission In Biafra

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter —Copi/righU MBUTU-NGWA (Biafra), March 11. Once a week, a C.A.R.I.T.A.S. relief truck with a Biafran priest and an outwardly tough, but soft-hearted driver leaves the peaceful mission station of Mbutu-Ngwa at dawn, writes Lloyd Garrison, of the New York Times News Service.

They drive south over rutted roads to within a few miles of the southern battle zone; and on the way a pitifully-meagre ration of food is dropped off for refugees and villagers living far from the usual relief distribution routes. Returning, the truck is filled to overflowing with the starving and the sick who will be placed in the care of the hospital in Mbutu-Ngwa and who, in many cases, will die there. It is a day-long ordeal, this weekly relief mission, not unlike journeying to the edge of purgatory and back. The battle line has never reached Mbutu-Ngwa; there is casava in the fields, and chickens still scratch in the farmyards. To be sure, people are hungry. There is no salt, no flour and practically no meat or fish. But thanks to the church and Red Cross airlift. I children are getting enough' protein concentrates to supplement their native diet. But the change in the humans encountered on the way to the front reflects just how cruel life still is for thousands of Biafrans near the fighting sectors. The dirt road crosses the main paved highway between &ba and Owerri, large cities. 36 miles apart, that are still

in Nigerian hands. A mile east of the junction, the bridge over the Imo river has been blown up. When the truck leaves the highway and pushes farther south, it enters a kind of civilian no-man’s land, in which the walls of most houses bear the pockmarks of battle. Only a month ago this region was in Nigerian hands. There is still migration on the roads, the refugees carrying their belongings on their backs and heads, or pushing overloaded bicycles. About every 10 minutes the truck stops beside an unmarked trail twisting off through the forest to a village or refugee camp—usually an abandoned schoolhouse or

church, or an array of thatchroofed sheds in an empty field. A small delegation waits by the roadside to receive the rations and sign for them. The priest hands out 24 pieces of stockfish, one 251 b bag of cornmeal, and 11b of salt in a plastic bag. Each village or refugee encampment in this area numbers from 300 to 1000 people: the fish and cornmeal will be cooked in a communal stew. There will be enough, perhaps, for a cupful for each person. And that will be all the food until the next week, save for what can be gathered from the countryside. The sick are also beside the road, waiting to be examined by the priest and •Railway Owunji, the truck | driver. He is called “Railway" because he began life as an engine-driver: he has also been a mechanic, a court clerk, a taxi-driver and a sergeant-major in the British Army in Burma. When people press too closely around the truck, or try to hitch rides or push the sick aboard too soon, the priest pleads with them, to

no avail. It is Railway Owunji who kicks out at the intruders with the heel of his boot. Only then do they stand back. But if there are a few inches of space left in the truck, Railway Owunji is the first to insist that yet another person be crammed aboard. "I am not a bard man,” he says. “I do not enjoy kicking my people. But we can take only those who suffer most.” By noon the truck reaches Eberi, the last village before the most forward Biafran positions. The scene is reminiscent of late last August, when an estimated 10,000 Biafrans were dying every day. Scores of sick and starving,

their limbs like matchsticks, wait for a place on the truck. Many are old people, suffering not only from hunger but rheumatism, arthritis, glandular swellings, fungus infections. The children all suffer from acute malnutrition; they have swollen bellies, chalk-white hair and saucer-like eyes with blank stares. Many have trekked for days in the bush, eluding the enemy, seeking refuge. It would take several truckloads to accommodate them all, and by now the relief truck is completely full. The two drive off on the long journey home, weeping without shame.