CHAOS IN GREECE

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXI, Issue 198, 23 July 1941, Page 7

CHAOS IN GREECE

CONCERN FOR PRISONERS. ENSURING SUPPLIES. (United Press Association —Copyright) (Roc. 9 a.m.) RUGBY. July 22. Reports of the chaotic conditions in Greece and the acute scarI city of' food among' the civilian population are causing concern in : Britain about (he state of the British prisoners of war both in Greece and Crete. The Red Cross and St. John AA'ar organisation have, as an immediate measure, telegraphed £IO,OOO to the British Ambassador in Ankara and £SOOO to Dr Brunei, the representative of the International Bed Cross in Greece, for the purchase of any food supplies available in Turkey and Greece to supplement the prisoners’ rations. 1 lie Prisoners of War Department of the Bed Cross recently stated that, as far as they could judge, about 9tXX) men had been taken in Greece, and these had now been mostly evacuated to Germany. Prisoners in Crete totalling approximately 13,000 are probably in the course of evacuation.

The British Red Cross has established a reserve of about 500.000 parcels of food, as well as considerable stores and clothing, at Geneva in charge of the International Red (Toss, but these cannot he dispatched to Greece as heavy German military traffic going east through the Balkans has occupied all available freight space.—Official Wireless.

The London Daily Telegraph's correspondent at Cairo reported on July 3 that a cholera epidemic had obliged the Germans to almost entirely evacuate Crete, also parts of Greece. The death roll was growing. German hygiene experts were unable to combat the disease. which developed from polluted wells and corpse-covered hills. Doctors were busily innoculating German and Italian soldiers.

| PRISONERS OF WAR. ! REPATRIATION OF WOUNDED. (Roc. 10.40 a.m.) • RUGBY. July 22. ! Arrangements for the repatriation of badly wounded prisoners of war are under discussion, the Foreign Undersecretary (Afr Law) revealed when replying in the House of Commons to a question. Air Law stated that proposals made for repatriation by hospital ships were not accepted by the German Government. but Berlin recently made a coun-ter-proposal for repatriation from neutral countries by ambulance aeroplane. For practical reasons the British Government was unable to accept the proposal in the form made, but had had advanced an alternative suggestion which it honed would be acceptable to the German Government.—Official AA’ireless.