NOT YET REPATRIATED

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27568, 9 December 1950, Page 9

NOT YET REPATRIATED

War Prisoners Held By Russia FULL INFORMATION SOUGHT Rec. 7.40 p.m. NEW YORK, Dec. 7. Five- years after the Second World War a large number of prisoners of war had not returned home nor had been accounted for by the Soviet Union, Mr Laurence Mclntyre (Australia) told the United Nations Social Committee today. “We have no exact knowledge of how many there originally were; we have little idea how many are still alive,” he said. Mr Mclntyre was speaking on a draft resolution submitted jointly by Australia, Britain and the United States which called upon all Governments still having control of Second World War prisoners to “give all prisoners an unrestricted opportunity of repatriation with the-least possible delay.” The resolution also* recommended the establishment of a United Nations Commission to seek from the Governments concerned full information regarding these prisoners. Mr Mclntyre said that on the best estimate available there were, at the time of the Armistice, about 8,600,000 Japanese to be repatriated, including 2.700,000 in territories under the control of Soviet forces. Of the prisoners under Russian control 369,382 were still unaccounted for, and this number included a large number of women, children and others who were not prisoners of war in the strict sense. The British delegate, Lord MacDonald, said that, according to the figures compiled by the Federal Government of Germany, there were 62,792 prisoners of war still in Soviet custody, but even this figure could not be regarded as the total of German prisoners still retained in Soviet territory. He said information was also obtained showing that, besides prisoners of war, there were still a great number of deported civilians of German nationality m 349 camps in the Soviet Union. Mr A. A. Arutiunian (Russia) said the ’ figures of unrepatriated war prisoners had been “ deliberately falsified.” He alleged that General MacArthur’s staff had duplicated the registrations, had compiled data of persons known to be dead, and had listed persons who were missing for one reason or another. Mr Arutiunian asserted that “ hundreds of thousands” of Japanese war prisoners were still being held in various areas by the American Government.” The statistics produced by General MacArthur were meant to conceal this by putting the blame on the Soviet Union.” he declared.

The committee, by 26 votes to 5, with eight abstenions, decided to circulate officially among members the documents received from the Governments of Japan, Germany and Italy relating to prisoners.