FAMINE IN INDIA

Dominion, Volume 36, Issue 307, 22 September 1943, Page 6

FAMINE IN INDIA

More Than £6,000,000 Spent In Bengal PEOPLE STILL DYING (Bv Telegraph. —Press Assu. —Copyright.) (Received September 21, 7.5 p.m.) LONDON, September 21. People arc still dying from starvation in the streets of Calcutta and other towns in Bengal in spite of Die authorities’ urgent measures to improve the food situation, reports Reuter’s Calcutta correspondent. More than 1200 bodies were disposed ot in Calcutta for the perio'd August 1 to September IS and more than 3500 cases were admitted to hospital between August 16 and September 16. For the three days ended September 19, 55 persons were taken to hospital and 166 patients died.

Reuter’s correspondent on the BengalAssam frontier says that hundreds of famished and destitute men, women and children from south aud cast Bengal are arriving daily and they wander from door to door, look like moving skeletons aud beg for morsels of food. The Bengal Government has announced that 2500 free kitchens feeding 65,000 people are now operating throughout the province. A further 1700 kitchans will he operating within a week. A’sum equivalent to £6,625,000 has already been spent on relief work. Mrs. Ray, a woman member of the Central Legislative Assembly, said that the devastation in the country districts was heartrending. Half the population would die from starvation unless widespread relief was organized immediately. The leader of an extreme Moslem organization, Mr. Khaksar, appealed to his followers to arrange for the maintenance in various relief centres of 600,000 children, irrespective of caste and religion.