REFUGEES’ PLIGHT

Hokitika Guardian, 18 May 1940, Page 5

REFUGEES’ PLIGHT

FROM BELGIUM & HOLLAND. ; i l (United Press Association —By Electric*Telegraph—Copyright;. V * LONDON, May 16. J The “Times’” Paris correspondent says: A tide of refugees is flooding i the Paris railway, stations. • There the refugees are . sitting or. lying; in pathetic groups, amid/’theiij bundles.; The Germans, by their. ruthless bombing of open towns, * are driving ; back across the French border.-hope- , less and helpless hordes of Belgian' men, women and-children.; 1-,’■■■ The Belgian Foreign Minister,M. Spaak, indicated the measure of this refugee problem when' he. said that, the number of the refugees is ten times greater'than it was in 1914. He said, that no outrage was. too great for the German airmen < to commit One squadron had bombed and mach-ine-gunned a procession of . people which was going to church on tlie i occasion of the Sacrament J-.; of Confirmation being administered. He said the effect of the raid by 29 German bombers on a Belgian town was truly appalling, the worst sufferers being refugees who were traversing the town. Women arid children wete found buried in debris, German bombs also destroyed a .number of buildings in Arras. . , ....:. He stated that one German bomberflew so low over a" village that the plane was wrecked by tlie blast of its own bomb, and the villagers .captured three of the crew, of whom one, it transpired, was a local, chemist; whom nobody before .recognised as a German in his many years’ residence.-in the village.- \, ARRIVAL’ AT LONDON, ; . LONDON, May. 17. There arrived at London; in tlie early hours of Thursday morning,, a shipload of English refugees from.tlib Namur and Louvaiii districts of Bel* igiiini. Many of them were penniless, ? Tlie refugees told' how the horrors they had gone through iii Belgium persisted when they boaived the ship. Round the vessel there were many explosions as enemy planes flew over it. The Germans were bombing and machine-gunning the quay, and the docks at- the port. In the ship, the women and children were below, and were cut off from the males. They werepanic stricken. One woman gave birth to twins during the voyage to England. Both the mother and the twins died. 'An Irish priest from Ghent was.one of the refugees. He said that the bombing of the vessel was believed to have been due to two spies boarding the ship earlier. One of the spies was arrested.