TIDE OF REFUGEES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 25 January 1939, Page 6

TIDE OF REFUGEES

FLIGHT FROM BARCELONA NO HOPE OF HOLDING CITY OVERWHELMING INSURGENT ATTACK. MASSED ARTILLERY & PLANES.

By Telegraph—Press Association— Copyright. (Received This Day, 12.30 p.m.) BARCELONA. January 24. Amid the crashing of bombs on the road, anti-aircraft guns and Franco’s big guns, the city today began feverishly to pack up. The Government and Army are determined to hold on to the last, but tens of thousands are fleeing. Machinery has been stripped from the factories and the whole apparatus of the central and Catalan administration has been carted off. The road to Gerona is jammed with vehicles of all descriptions. Gerona normally has 25,000 inhabitants. It received 20,000 refugees last week, yet new crowds are pouring in. Officials are vAjnly searching for quarters in which to install Government Departments, which are being driven farther north, to Figuera. Some Departments which came originally from Madrid to Valencia, thence to Barcelona are now on the road again after travelling six hundred miles in two years. t . The people of Barcelona find it incredible that the battlefront, which was a hundred miles away last month, is now visible from the city. Madrid could be defended because there was at least one gun to five insurgent guns, but Barcelona probably has not one to twenty. It is obvious that shallow trenches hastily dug would be of no use against massed batteries of artillery and fleets of bombers.

NEGRIN GOVERNMENT REPORTED DEPARTURE. GENERAL MIAJA ON HIS WAY TO BARCELONA. (Received This Day, 1.35 p.m.) LERIDA, January 24. Reports persist that Senor Negrin’s Government has left Barcelona for a destination unknown. It is understood that General Miaja, commander at Madrid, is en route to Barcelona from Madrid. SUBURBS NEARER BY ADVANCING MOROCCANS. LITTLE OPPOSITION. (Received This Day, 1.35 p.m.) LERIDA, January 24. General Franco’s forces have crossed the Llobregat line and reached a point one mile from Barcelona’s suburbs. The advance was made by the Moroccan forces which have been moving along the coast road. The Nationalist batteries tonight are pounding Barcelona port. Over two thousand prisoners had been taken by midday. Simultaneously with the advance of the Moroccans, the Fourth Division of Navarrese crossed the Llobregat Line near Martorell, south of Manresa. The advance continues, practically unopposed, in all sectors.