Red Cross Relief Ends In Nigeria

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32217, 9 February 1970, Page 15

Red Cross Relief Ends In Nigeria

i.V Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright)

GENEVA, February 8.

The International Red Cross committee today announced the halting of its relief work in Nigeria, and said that it was now up to local authorities to help the tens of thousands of people still in need.

A spokesman told a news conference that the decision was taken freely and was communicated to the Nigerian Ambassador in Geneva on Friday.

Although the LC.R.C.’s relief role was transferred to the Nigerian Red Cross last June, the committee made six flights into Nigeria from Cotonou, Dahomey, after the defeat of the secessionist Biafran regime in mid-Janu-ary. These flights were stopped on January 23, and the spokesman said that one reason was because Nigeria did not want International Red Cross aircraft flying over its territory. A communique announcing the end of the I.C.R.C. service drew the conclusion that “time will not quickly obliterate the suffering of the vic-!

s tims of this terrible drama.”! i The spokesman said the s LC.R.C. would retain a dele- • gation in Lagos, but would 1 not make any further aid proposals. • Mr Jacques de Heller, an > I.C.R.C. delegate who returned t from Nigeria last Sunday, said > that generally the medical i situation in the former ens clave was under control. t But, he said, there were ■ still big problems in the zone round the last secessionist I capital of Owerri and in the - sector in the east between > Umuahia and Arikpo. t Part of the population in ■ these areas, Mr de Heller said, was suffering from ; kwashiorkor, the protein- >, deficiency disease. In one i relief centre he saw 80 per -1 cent of the people affected -:by the disease.