ARAB ON WHITE ASS

Greymouth Evening Star, 29 March 1941, Page 2

ARAB ON WHITE ASS

KASSALA MAYOR’S MESSAGE

LONDON, Jan. 27

At dawn on Saturday morning look-out men in our forward posts outside Kassala reported that an Arab, riding a white ass, was approaching the British lines from the direction of the Italian-occupied town, says a special correspondent of the Times, writing from Kassala. He dismounted a few yards from the post. While rifles and Bren guns covered him, he demanded that he be taken immediately to the British Commander. To him he handed a sealed scrap of paper, on which was scrawled a few words of Arabic. They had been written by the Mayor of Kassala and smuggled out of the town by the messenger, and what they said was: “Please enter Kassala with your forces immediately. The Italians are retreating.” In this dramatic fashion the British Army in the Sudan received confirmation from inside Kassala of their intelligence that Fascist troops which had been in occupation of Kassala and the surrounding districts of the Sudan for more than six months were on the run back into Eritrea as the result of the tightening of British pressure. Acting on the Mayor’s information —for he has long been a trusted friend of the British—our forces began the advance which has now taken them 40 miles inside Eritrea.

As the British forces pursue the retreating Fascist troops, the Sudan authorities are already hard at work restoring Kassala to the prosperity it enjoyed before the Italians entered the town last summer.