FAMINE IN GREECE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 17 February 1942, Page 3

FAMINE IN GREECE

FORTY THOUSAND DEATHS IN FOUR MONTHS VICTIMS COLLAPSING IN STREETS. AXIS REFUSING SAFE-CONDUCT TO WHEAT SHIP. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) ANKARA, February 15. According to reports reaching authoritative quarters, 40,000 people have died of starvation in Greece in the past four months, mostly in the Athens region. Travellers from Greece say that now at least 500 drop dead from starvation every day. “I saw former generals, admirals and millionaires queuing for food,” said one traveller. “Money is of no value and the whole population suffers alike.” People are seen in the daytime to crumple up in the gutters, where they are left till dark, when carts pick up the bodies and dump them in trenches outside the city. A meagre bread ration is available only every other day. The sinking of the Kurtulus, which was wrecked on January 20, was the last straw for the Greeks. Hope again dawned with the knowledge that an 8000-ton Swedish ship chartered by the International Red Cross was loading wheat at Haifa for Greece and also that another Swedish foodship might go from Turkey. " Von Papen is reported to have told the Greeks in Turkey that the Germans guaranteed the safety of neutral foodships to Greece.and also that the Rumanians would immediately provide 3000 tons of corn—if dollars could be found to buy it.

Though Britain on February 5 completed dispositions for the dispatch of a shipload of wheat to Greece, the ship is unable to leave because the Italians and Germans have not assured its safe conduct, says the London “Daily Telegraph.”