AEGEAN ISLES

Timaru Herald, Volume CLIII, Issue 22476, 11 January 1943, Page 5

AEGEAN ISLES

Population Dying Of

Starvation

Pitiful Scenes Witnessed

N.Z.P.A.—Special Australian Correspondent (6.30 p.m.) LONDON, Jan. 8. Thousands of persons are dying of starvation in the Aegean Isles, according to reports reaching Alexandria and Ankara, says the Alexandria correspondent of the British United Press. Food supplies are about exhausted, and scenes similar to those at Athens can now be seen in the Aegean Isles, where refugees lie around waiting for death with stomachs grotesquely distended by hunger. Carts every night trundle through the streets and the bodies of those who died during the day are tossed in and carried off for burial.

More than 250,000 persons in the Isles of Mitylene, Nikaria, Chios and Samos, some of the most beautiful islands in the world, are affected. One thousand tons of Canadian flour distributed by the Red Cross in Mitylene is nearly exhausted and the supplies at Chios will last only another two weeks. Samos and Nikaria have no supplies. None of the 15,000 tons of American wheat arriving at Athens monthly has reached the Aegean Isles. Conditions on the mainland are slightly better, but a traveller from Athens who lived there until the last few weeks told the correspondent that conditions were still terrible. There was still very little of anything. The .Greeks were so desperate that they no longer trouble to hide their feelings. They hate the Germans and show it openly in the streets. An Istanbul correspondent says the Germans and Italians recently stiffened their repressive measures in Greece, aiming to cow the population. Several persons were executed in Macedonia for alleged sabotage. The Germans shot the harbourmaster at Lemnos. The Italians handcuffed and sent to Italy Generals Manetta and Othoneos and Admiral Kolialexis. The blackout is being stringently enforced in Mitylene and Chios. Hunger in Italy Frequent hunger demonstrations are occurring in Northern Italian towns according to the report of a neutral resident who has returned to Cairo from Italy, says Reuters correspondent. He saw during three days in Milan four demonstrations in which police and Fascist militia dispersed shabby marchers. He witnessed similar processions in Florence and Venice. Mussolini, who is very irritable as the result of insomnia, had in one day to receive four delegations protesting against the war, to which he half listened for a few minutes, then angrily dismissed the delegations.