BASQUES’ PLIGHT

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 455, 12 June 1937, Page 2

BASQUES’ PLIGHT

PRIVATIONS IN SPAIN Two Women’s Experiences Privations of the 1 people in the Basque area of Spain were brought forcibly to the notice of two Englishwomen, Mrs. L. M. Gee and Miss’ B. Lloyidi-Wllliams, who recently visited Spain, to investigate conditions there on behalf of the Friends Service Council. An accounlt of their experiences is published in The Friend, a Quaker journal. “A sense of tragedy overhangs Bilbao,” the two women said in their account “The streets are crowded' with hungry, haggard-looking people, the' cafes with occupants who sit reading before Bare tables, the only drinks obtainable being camomile, tea or whisky, while bread and meat have not been seen for weeks, fruit and vegetables are a rarity, and the staple idiet is beans and rice. Frequent Air Raids. '“ln .Santander Ithere is a slightly more cheerful air. Just before our arrival a ship had run the ineffective blockade, and there was rather more food'; but such relief is temporary, and the lack of all that is necessary to life is only too evident here, too. In Asturias matters are even "worse. Belarmino Tomas, the miners’ leader, Governor of Gijon, told u.s that in the winter children walked barefoot and starving through the snowy mountains. 1 “While their physique is undermined by lack of food, the people’s nerves are strlained to breaking-point by constant air.raide and bombardments from the sea The sirens sound and th© streets are suddenly dense with men, women and children running to the refugee, .terrified, yet without showing panic, without disorder, laughing and! joking till a silence falls broken by the* drumming of Ithe aeroplanes overhead, which may discharge their deadly loads, causing incalculable suffering and damage

Massacre of Civilians. “Durango was attacked by General Mola’s forces the day after our arrival, when more than 1000 persons of the civil population, including nuns and priests, were killed or wounded either by bombs or by machine-gun fire directed on them from the aeroplanes, and the town was left '■ heap of ruins and dead bodies. “There is much pressure on the hospitals because of the increasing number of wounded civilians and toldiers, and here, specially in the babies’ hospitals an-i sanatoria, they are sorely in need cf medhal supplies, tonics and infant foods,” tne article added. “They are proud, and did not willingly ask us. for help, but here and everywhere else there was one poignant 'appeal—‘Take our children away. Save them at least from the horrors of this war.”