FINNISH REFUGEES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 9 January 1940, Page 5

FINNISH REFUGEES

LARGE NUMBERS QUARTERED IN RURAL AREAS FOOD STILL PLENTIFUL. CHURCH DOING NOBLE WORK. LONDON, January 8. The Helsinki ‘correspondent of “The Times’’ says that 400,000 refugees are quartered in farmhouses, public buildings, and schools. Ninety thousand people, half of them from the Karelian Isthmus, occupy the houses, where there exists the co-operative spirit which animates the soldiers in the front line. At present food is plentiful, but it may not last. The Kuopio district of 27,000 square miles, contains 80,000 children, women sick and aged. Bishop Sormunen, when the evacuation choked the roads, ordered the churches to be opened and heated as places of refuge. Epidemics hitherto have been avoided. The Church plays a noble part in the relief work. Thirty thousand of Lapland’s population of 100,000 are refugees, and the remaining 70.000 accommodate them. INQUIRY PROMISED ' SINKING OF SWEDISH STEAMER. STOCKHOLM, January 8. The Foreign Office announced that Russia has promised to investigate the sinking of the Finris. It was reported in an earlier message. that a submarine which was believed to be Russian, shelled and seton fire the Swedish steamer Finris, near Oulu. The crew of 15 was rescued. ITALIAN PLANES CONSIGNED TO FINLAND. HELD UP BY GERMANY. (Received This Day, 9.45 a.m.) BERLIN, January 8. The Government has held up a number of Italian planes, destined tpr Finland, and railed across Germany to a Baltic port. informed sources state that Germany is aware that Russia would violently object to their transit. GERMAN AID STAFF OFFICERS SENT TO RUSSIA. ASSISTING IN REORGANISATION OF ARMY. PARTS, January 8. The French wireless reports that 20 German General Staff otticers nave gone to Russia in order to help in a reorganisation of the Red Army.