Aid in by air, rail

Press, 28 December 1989, Page 8

Aid in by air, rail

NZPA-Reuter Vienna Relief organisations rushed food, blood, medicine and drugs to Romanja yesterday to help ease the misery of thousands wounded in the national uprising. International aid columns joined up by air, road and rail in ravaged Romania, but some doctors had. to perform, emergency surgery without anaesthetics because of drugs shortages. Doctors from Austria’s Tyrolean Air Ambulance who reached the western town of Timisoara found surgeons who had- run out of anaesthetic performing surgery on thousands of wounded, the Austrian Press Agency reported. Timisoara was the scene of intense fighting between Ceausescu’s elite secret police and army units backing the new National Salvation Front Government.

In Bucharest, planes stuffed with emergency supplies landed at the international airport, where fierce fighting had blocked most air traffic at the week-end.

A Czechoslovak plane loaded with supplies landed at midday. People on board said the airport was calm, but access roads were still not entirely cleared of proCeausescu forces firing on traffic, the Czechoslovak news agency, C.T.K., reported.

The Polish Air Force has been airlifting large quantities of medical supplies to Bucharest, the official Polish news agency, P.A.P., said.

The first Soviet plane carrying medicine and blood left the Moldavian capital of Kishinev on Tuesday, Radio Moscow reported. Most of the Moldavian population are ethnic Romanians. The Hungarian Red Cross dispatched 12 tonnes of aid by plane, and planned another shipment of medicine and food, the M.T.I. news agency said. A Belgian Air Force cargo plane with 34 tonnes of medical supplies flew from Brussels. Romania’s plight made people across Europe interrupt their Christmas holidays to give blood, food, money and clothing to the

victims. Dozens of volunteer doctors rushed to help. The Polish Red Cross, swamped by blood donors, asked Poles to give blood only on assigned dates because it lacks storage facilities for unprecedented quantity of donations. Austrians have given 600 tonnes of aid that was being prepared in Vienna for shipment along the Danube. A large French chemical company, Rhone-Poulenc, said its health foundation had sent antibiotics, antiseptics and sterile compresses to Romania by truck. A French humanitarian charity, Equilibre, it would soon dispatch two convoys carrying 80 tonnes of supplies. Other nations set aside thousands of hospital beds to care for Romanians injured in the uprising.

The Soviet Union prepared a 6000-bed hospital at the border, where doctors and blood transfusion centres were on alert. Poland reserved 600 beds for the wounded.