RUSSIA’S NIGHTMARE

New Zealand Times, Volume XLVII, Issue 10992, 30 August 1921, Page 6

RUSSIA’S NIGHTMARE

FAMINE AND DISEASE REVOLTING STORY OF PEOPLE'S SUFFERING'S. DYING OFF LIKE FLIES. By Telegraph—Press A sen. —Copyright. United Service Telegram. (Received August 30, 1.5 a.nO LONDON, August 20. The ‘‘Daily Nows” dispartohed an aviator-correspondent. Major Blake. ts* Russia bv air to gain authentic nowu of the famine. The first message gives terrible details of what is described as “a nightmare horror of a ruined civilisation.” Major Blake saw millions of refugees flowing in a mighty stream from east to west ; an unending torrent of humanity seeking salvation in the west — thin, ragged and starving. Many were naked. Children were covered with sores and swarming with flies. Border towns receiving refugees were permeated with the stink of rotting humanity. Sanitation was non-existent. The refugees were huddling in huts made of boughs and filling old trenches where they fought in the war. Men, women, and children, worn out with dysentery, were staggering into foul compounds, indifferent to everything, and dying off like flies in Pirnsk and other pdaees. Hordes have been subsisting on grass soup, perhaps varied with a few rotten potatoes.