Heavy Civilian Toll In Vietnam Reported

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31941, 19 March 1969, Page 13

Heavy Civilian Toll In Vietnam Reported

(N.Z. Press - Association—Copyright)

SAIGON, March 18. Communist terrorists killed or wounded at least 118 civilians throughout the nation during one of the largest single day’s wave of terrorist attacks, South Vietnamese sources disclosed today.

Many women and children were reported among the victims in the attacks yesterday.

up two large taxi-cabs on a highway 24 miles south-west of Saigon. They said 25 civilians packed into the cabs were killed and five injured in the concussions. Along the coast east of Saigon, the sources said, Communists detonated a mine at a school bus stop where children had gathered.

12,000 are believed to be moving towards the capital. Eight Bs2s—each with a bomb load of 30 tons—took part m all 10 air strikes this morning.

In their summary of yesterday’s terror attacks, the South Vietnamese sources said the worst attack blew

A United States military spokesman said the unusually high number of raids were aimed mostly at infiltration routes in the jungle areas of the Tay Ninh and Binh Long provinces along the border. The spokesman said six strikes were on base camps, bunker complexes and military structures 28 miles north-east of Tay Ninh city, about 60 miles north-west of Saigon.

Two of the children were reported killed and 35 wounded. Giant American B-52 Stratofortresses struck at Viet Cong and North Vietnamese troops’ positions along the Cambodian border before dawn today in some of the heaviest raids since the latest Communist offensive opened on February 23. About 50,000 North Vietnamese and Viet Cong are known to be hiding out in the jungles between the border and Saigon, and.

Two raids were flown 70 miles north-west of the capital in Binh Long province, and two in the extreme southern province of An Xuyen—an area long regarded as a Viet Cong stronghold.