REPORTS ON BOMBING

Evening Post, Issue 79, 2 April 1936, Page 9

REPORTS ON BOMBING

THE HARRAR RAID

INFORMATION IN COMMONS

(British Official WlrelcssJ (Received April 2, 11 a.m.)

RUGBY, April 1,

Questioned in the House of Commons about the bombing of Harrar on March 29, the Foreign. Secretary cited reports received from British representatives in Ethiopia to the effect that the raid was carried out by eighteen Italian aircraft which circled wide three times at about 6000 feet and dropped in all approximately three hundred bombs. Three bombs fell in the Swedish mission compound, 50 in that of the Egyptian Red Cross, 14 oh the 'Catholic mission, and 4 on the French Hospital and agency, and 4 on the Harrar Red Cross, destroying the Red Cross ground sign, five yards square. The Catholic Church and the Abyssinian Church of St. Xavier were also badly damaged. The number of casualties was fortunately small, as the town was evacuated before the raid.

As to whether Harrar is an open town, Mr. Eden said that the, Abyssinian Government had issued a communique denying reports from Italian sources <that military preparations had been made in the town.

Pressed, in. supplementary questions by Opposition members, who referred to the increasing public indignation at reports of bombing and• the use. of poison gas in Abyssinia, to say what steps the Government was proposing to take, Mr. Eden reminded the House that the Government was as anxious as anyone to see an end to the war in East Africa and the miserable suffering consequent on it. He repeated that the Government desired that the task of the League Committee of Thirteen should be pursued as fully as possible. .-...,-