HAPLESS GREEKS

Evening Star, Issue 25684, 7 January 1946, Page 8

HAPLESS GREEKS

TUBERCULOSIS RIFE LONDON, January 4. Many Greeks in isolated districts would have to live on bread and water until April, said Mr B. F. Maben, chief of the Unrra mission to Greece. He added that 4 or 5 per cent, of the Greek people were living well, but the remainder were underfed. It was common to see 14-year-olds with the stature of eight-year-olds, and the tuberculosis rate was 15 times greater than in Britain. Prices in Athens were 120 times greater than the pre-war figures, and it would be difficult to effect reconstruction while inflation continued. Dnrra’s work was rendered more difficult because Greek harbours were working at only 10 per cent, of their pre-war capacity. The Greek people were supposed to get 2,100 calories a day, compared with 2,850 in the British diet, but actually two-thirds of the Greek people subsisted on wheat. The outlook for winter was grim. Antimalaria teams using D.D.T. were fighting malaria, from which 2,000,000 of a population of 7,000,000 are suffering, and by the end of 1947 Greece would be free of malaria.